31 Mar 2022 Youth of the Month: Destiny Vaden

By Becky Bell

Destiny Vaden, who turns 18 this month, is the kind of young woman who sees all things through the lens of God’s love, purpose, and sacrifice.

Her Christianity is what helped her get through a terrible car accident last year that left her unconscious, with serious injuries.

“I was with my friends in the car wreck, and we were 15 or 16 so it wasn’t that long ago. We were driving down a road that’s really pretty. We were at a light, and we were T-boned. I don’t remember the accident itself, but I had a concussion after. I woke up in an ambulance. I broke my collarbone, cheek bone, the orbital around my eye, bruised my lungs, chipped my spine, and my head was cut.”

Surprisingly, Destiny only spent one night in the hospital, but weeks later she had facial reconstruction surgery because doctors told her that her face would be uneven if she didn’t. She said the facial surgery wasn’t bad, but the pain from the broken collar bone really hurt. She continues to have pain from that today.

When the Greenbrier High School senior thinks about the wreck, she focuses on her survival.

“I know God plans out everything that is going to happen to you, and obviously I survived. I think he has a reason for everything. Even though I don’t understand it, he has a reason for it,” she said. “It helped me to know I would be OK, and I trusted that He would heal me. I prayed that I would get through it and recover quickly.”

She did heal, and she will graduate this May with the highest honors — a double completer, an associate degree, and a 4.3 GPA. Her diligence academically means she will begin college at the University of Arkansas as a sophomore or junior instead of a freshman, and will therefore be closer to graduation. After she graduates college, she plans to attend medical school and become an obstetrician. 

“I have always loved babies, and I have an interest in surgery. I looked up what an OB did, and I found out they deliver the baby, help the women when they are pregnant, and do C-sections. That’s what I want to do. That would fulfill my interest in surgery, and I would get to help deliver babies. I really thought God brought me to that.”

The young woman said she believes in God and His sacrifice to send His son to earth so that people who believe in Him can have everlasting life. Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection is important to her and her mother, Lisa Vaden. At two and a half years old, her mother pulled Destiny from the nursery and started bringing her into her Sunday school class to learn about the role God plays in the lives of His believers.

Both Destiny and her mother have remained faithful members of Pleasant Valley Baptist Church in Wooster, and they attend just about every time the doors are open.

One thing that is clear is Lisa’s immense pride for the child she had when she was 44 years old. When Destiny was little, her mother would make an Easter scavenger hunt for her so that she could learn the true meaning for the holiday.

Last Easter, Destiny continued this tradition by making a scavenger hunt for her cousin, Ryan Reynolds, now a third grader at Greenbrier Elementary. 

“I wanted to teach him the meaning of Easter and how we don’t celebrate this for the Easter Bunny and the eggs. This is really about God. God needs to be incorporated in this holiday, and God needs to be remembered in this holiday, and it’s not just for funzies.”

But Destiny did incorporate the fun things about Easter, along with Biblical passages to help get the message across to Ryan about the sacrifice both God and Jesus made. The scavenger hunt began at her home and continued to the post office, the car wash, and finally the Pleasant Valley Baptist Church’s cemetery in Wooster. Eggs with candy were scattered at each spot with a shiny egg holding a clue for the next place to go. At the end of the hunt, Ryan found a relative’s tombstone where his main prize, an adventure Bible, was found. Destiny, her mother, and Ryan’s father, Troy Reynolds, transported Ryan to each spot.

Destiny said Ryan was delighted by his scavenger hunt and felt like he had learned what she had planned. She is now becoming an example of Christianity to her young cousin as her mother was to her as she grew up.

“My mother raised me in church, and I have gone to church as long as I can remember,” she said. “She was always educating me in faith and always talking about God. We always would go on little trips or to the zoo and everything she did she incorporated God into it somehow.”

And now, Destiny is completing the family tradition of passing down faith in God and all of His blessings throughout the year, especially on Easter.