Bonnie Kate Zoghbi is the kind of woman you want your daughters to grow up to be.
Max Zoghbi
Heck, she’s the kind of woman I want to grow up to be.
A woman who radiates the love of Jesus in every circumstance, exudes joy and passion beyond comparison, and inspires everyone around her to be a better person. A person who serves faithfully, loves wondrously and overcomes evil every single day with the power of the Holy Spirit.
Not to mention, she’s a woman who sprinkles flowers everywhere she goes, sports mermaid hair that even Ariel would be envious of, and brings life and color to the world around her.
Beyond her incredible qualities, it’s Bonnie Kate’s story, that makes her all the more admirable.
When she turned 18, Bonnie Kate moved to Haiti to serve full-time in the mission field.
After just a few months, she contracted a tropical virus that caused her to become violently ill and vomit hundreds of times a day.
There was no cure for her illness.
As her now-husband, Max, puts it, “She learned to live with this disease, but still was slowly dying.”
But rather than feeling sorry for herself, or finding it easier to just give up, Bonnie Kate embraced it, knowing God was working through her in this.
After returning home to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Bonnie Kate visited her friend Elizabeth in Seattle before the two took a road trip back home to the south.
On July 19, 2012, the girls stopped on their road trip in Colorado—at a town outside of Denver, called Aurora.
The midnight premiere of the new Batman movie led them to the Aurora theater on their quest to make memories.
But just 15 minutes into the movie, James Holmes opened gunfire in theater 9, leaving 12 dead and 70 injured.
Through the darkness—both literally and figuratively—Bonnie Kate and Elizabeth prayed.
An AR-15 rifle bullet sailed across the theater and struck Bonnie Kate—completely destroying her left knee. But both girls survived.
In a video that her husband and filmmaker, Max Zoghbi, put together to propose to his now-wife, he explains that Bonnie Kate has been in pain every hour since the shooting, and very well could be for the rest of her life.
Beyond that, recovering from the massacre was a battle like no other.
“Massive surgeries, unthinkable relentless pain, physical trauma, processing what happened, mourning with those who did not make it out, wondering why she was spared, nights of bad dreams, little rest, more pain, more surgery, more physical therapy…it just seemed too much,” Max says. “And it was.”
“But bathed in prayer by thousands, and cared for and served by her family, Bonnie Kate rose.”
Through perseverance, determination and faith, she learned to walk again. Praying through the pain, choosing joy every day, and putting on a heart of gratitude when given the option to choose bitterness.
In spite of the “to your core, deep bone, angry, relentless type of pain that drains her every day and night,” Max says Bonnie Kate continues to rely on Jesus for her strength.
Her circumstance could easily be blamed on the evil of this world that overtook a man. But Bonnie Kate instead chooses to share her story as a way to praise God for His goodness, His mercy and grace that spared her life, and gives purpose to tragedy today.
Last week, Bonnie Kate took to Instagram on the anniversary of the shooting to reflect on the past five years, and how her life has radically changed because of that fateful night.