While she thinks her mother isn’t looking, she leaps happily from sofa to sofa, her Super Woman cape, a towel tied around her neck, flying in the air behind her. From the very beginning Marie Orozco says that her daughter Lorraine always loved to sing. One time, at two years of age Lorraine got lost in a department store. Marie found her little two-year-old by listening to her little voice singing the theme song to The Brady Bunch under some clothing rack. By three years old, Lorraine was a very happy and energetic little girl. Clearly her parent’s, Santiago and Marie Orozco adored her. She was her daddy’s little princess and her mamma’s whole world.
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Everything changed in the Orozco household one Christmas Eve. It started out as a joyous occasion. Lorraine’s aunt, one of her mom’s sisters was getting married. Lorraine was one of the flower girls. Lorraine says she doesn’t remember much of the actual wedding itself. Just that her and her cousin were wearing matching red dresses and she distinctly remembers that even back then she was not fond of the color red and would have preferred to be wearing pink or purple. When it was actually time for her and her cousin to go down the aisle, instead of slowly, gracefully walking down the aisle like they were supposed to, they ran.
After the wedding everyone went to her grandparent’s house for a time of celebration. Lorraine was running around playing with her cousins, screaming and laughing, just carrying on like little 3-year-olds do. As they were playing, Lorraine’s 15-year-old uncle was backing up her grandfather’s pick up truck, loaded with wedding gifts, to the back porch. Little Lorraine decided that she wanted to ride with her uncle in the truck so she just ran behind the truck and grabbed on. However, her uncle never saw her run out and grab a hold to the truck.
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Lorraine tried to grab on to the tailgate that was open on the truck. Instead she felt herself being pulled under the truck as it began to back up. Her body began to be crushed under the back tire of the truck. Her face stuck into the ground as dirt and rocks smashed into her eyes, tearing at her flesh. As she lay there, crushed beneath the back tire, she remembers seeing her dad and another uncle tearing out of the house. Lorraine will never forget the look of horror on their faces. They began screaming, waving their arms and yelling frantically for her uncle to back up so they could get her out.
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When Marie got word of what had happened, she thought for sure her daughter was dead. She says that when she saw her little girl lying there, she felt an extremely sharp pain in her heart that she has never before or since experienced. She ran over to Lorraine even more horrified by what she saw. Her baby was lying there on the ground, her eyes shut, and her head tilted to one side as blood trickled out of her mouth. As she looked at her precious little baby, all Mommy could do was scream from deep inside the depths of her soul. For a moment everything seemed to freeze. Time stood still. The next thing Marie remembers is frantically running to the house calling 911.
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Lorraine’s 15-year-old uncle had absolutely no idea that he had just run over his niece. As soon as he stopped the truck they scooped her up. Daddy carried his broken little princess to the car and she was immediately rushed to the nearest hospital.
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That Christmas Eve night, while everyone else was singing Joy to the World, while children everywhere were waiting with great anticipation to open presents in the morning, a little 3-year-old girl lay in her hospital bed in pain, scared and confused. Everyone kept touching her and she could hear whispers, “She can’t move or feel her lower body.” Everyone wanted to pinch her legs to see if she really couldn’t feel them.
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As the days passed, the doctors and nurses tried everything they could do to fix her, but it was no use, the lower half of her body had lost all its feeling. Two weeks later she was sent home to face the world in a little silver wheelchair. Never again would she leap from sofa to sofa, never again would she run freely with all her cousins and friends, forever labeled as a cripple, forever known as the girl in the wheelchair. Lorraine Marie Orozco was paralyzed.
However, somewhere in the middle of all the hurt and confusion, Lorraine found solace in what the accident had not taken, her ability to sing. “It was my way of escape, and I thank God for it because no one could take that away from me.” So through it all, little Lorraine continued to sing.
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Santiago and Marie were absolutely devastated. They were determined that some way, some how, their little girl was going to walk again. In their desperation they began to try all different things on their daughter to try and make her whole. They took her to every doctor, healer, therapist and specialist known to man. They did everything from creams and pills to shock therapy and even a witch doctor. The Orozcos were desperate, so very desperate to see their little girl walk again. But no matter how hard they tried, nothing ever worked. This only devastated them more. They were determined and desperate to make Lorraine walk again.
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However, it was also this very same desperation that drove the Orozcos to the best thing that could happen to them, faith in God. It was at this time in their lives that they began to notice a spiritual desperation inside their hearts. They began to do a Bible study and were astonished by the things that God began to reveal to them. In November of 1984, Santiago and Marie Orozco surrendered their lives to God as they were baptized in Jesus name and soon afterward filled with the Holy Ghost.
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Their little girl’s accident had caused them to find Jesus and because they had found Him, they had also found the one could make their daughter would walk again. In their desperation, Santiago and Marie discovered a sure way for their daughter to walk again. By surrendering their lives to God and raising Lorraine in the truth, they made it possible for her, to without a doubt know, that one day, even if it is on the other side, she will walk again.
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Today Lorraine is a beautiful woman of God. She just recently celebrated her 24th birthday, for the sixth time. Those that are close to her describe her as strong willed, slightly stubborn, courageous and just overall amazing. She is not afraid to stand in the face of adversity. Her youngest brother Eric says that his sister is one of the strongest people he has ever known. “She just won’t quit,” he says with a laugh. “I think it’s because of her that I have made it to where I am today. When I’ve been at my lowest point, I would think, I can’t quit, because Lori wouldn’t quit.”
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One thing about Lorraine is that she has always been determined. Shortly after the accident her parent’s heard of a brace called a recipricator, with crutches, this body brace would allow Lorraine to walk. The brace encased her body and with the proper movements from the top of her body it would move her legs.
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Well, one day, when Lorraine was about 6-years old, her family was looking at model homes. While her parent’s were speaking to a sales agent, Lorraine noticed the stairs. As she noticed them, she decided that they looked like fun and she decided that she would like to climb them and so she did. When she got to the top of the stairs, she hollered down to her parent’s, grinning at them proudly. Her parent’s gasped, shocked and surprised to see their little girl who could not walk at the top of the stairs. Of course as proud as they were of her accomplishment, her mom still practically had a heart attack.
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It is that same determination in Lorraine has caused her to continually defy the odds in life, also continually giving her mother mini heart attacks along the way. It is determination that has allowed Lorraine too accomplish all that she has in life. It is determination that caused her to graduate from public high school with honors and to sing the national anthem at her graduation. It is determination that pushed her to learn how to drive in high school, just like the rest of her peers. It is determination that made her decide to live independently on the University of Arizona campus. It is determination to live that has brought her through numerous life-threatening back surgeries. It is determination that has cause Lorraine to write two books sharing her life story. It is determination to make a difference in her world that causes her to tell her testimony to others. It is determination that sent her to two years of Bible College in Jackson Mississippi where she studied music sang in the choir and taught Spanish. It is determination that made Lorraine decide to travel across the ocean, to another continent, where most things are not wheelchair accessible, to tour the beauty of England and help share the love of Jesus.
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Despite her wheelchair, Lorraine still manages to get in just as much shopping as any other girl. She loves hair accessories, cute purses and has a fetish with multiple pairs of glasses and sunglasses. She has a passion for Starbucks and firmly believes they should stay open 24 hours a day. Blogging, Facebook, twitter, emails, texting, long phone conversations, Lorraine does it all. She enjoys making tamales with her family at Christmas time. Come January you can be sure to find her at H&R block doing peoples taxes. She helps teach with her brother their youth cell group and when not writing or singing, she can be found studying music, teaching piano lessons or driving to Cheesecake Factory in her cherry red Mustang. It is easy to see that Lorraine lives a very productive and fulfilling life.
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Lorraine says that she never forgave her uncle for what happened, simply because she has never felt any anger towards him. She said that her parent’s never displayed any anger and so she never picked anything up herself. Her parent’s always taught her that it was an accident and because of that she has never felt a reason to be mad.
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During her life, Lorraine has been prayed for many times for healing in her body. She spent much time in tears growing up, praying and pleading with God to give her the ability to walk, but God never chose to go that route for Lorraine. As an adult, Lorraine has come to a full acceptance that although God, without a doubt in her mind has the ability to heal her, He has chosen not too. She says that she no longer prays for healing. “It’s not that I have given up on God,” she says. She just trusts that the way she is right now is what God wants for her at this time.
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However, one thing that really bugs her is that people are still trying to get her healed. Its like she has accepted God’s will for her life, but other people can’t. Instead of focusing on all that she can do, they focus on the one thing she can’t do, the ability to walk. People are uncomfortable with seeing her in a wheelchair, so they want to try and “fix” her so she can be like them. Lorraine, does not view herself that way. She does not like she needs to be ‘fixed’. She feels that what happened to her was indeed a terrible thing to go through and while she doesn’t ‘like’ being in a wheelchair, if she had the choice she wouldn’t go back to before the accident and try to change what happened. It is because of the accident that her parent’s found God. “Yes, I would love to be able to walk like everyone else,” says Lorraine, “but don’t tell me that being able to walk is more important than my salvation.”
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Recently, Lorraine just published her second book, “He Blessed The Broken” which is the sequel to her first autobiography, “Famous In Battle”. With the encouragement of her pastor, Rev. Paul Connor of Faith Tabernacle Church in Tucson Arizona, Lorraine will be traveling around giving her testimony and singing as God opens the doors. Her goal is to raise funds to go to Barcelona Spain and teach music to people that will be sent to play in smaller home mission churches in Spain. Lorraine’s brother Eric says that he has seen his sister go places many people can only dream of going, he has seen her touch hearts in ways that others could only dream of touching.
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Lorraine says she will never forget the night at Conqueror’s Conference youth convention that a certain preacher came to her during an alter call and with little emotion on his face he grabbed her hand and began to pray with her. She says that as he prayed with her the presence of God wrapped around her. However, this preacher was not praying for her healing. She remembers him saying as they prayed that God had not forgotten her and that He was going to do great things in her life, greater than she could even imagine.
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“I knew right then that my ministry for God had only begun,” says Lorraine, and even though I couldn’t see it, eventually it would all work together for the good.” She put her feelings into a song she wrote called “I Believe”, listen as her beautiful voice sings out, “So many nights I’ve cried praying, Lord please change my situation, take this pain from my heart, then I hear you whisper in the darkness "My Child, don’t get discouraged take my hand and believe, I’m working it all for your good. Lord I believe, that eventually everything will turn out right, because you are the God that can’t fail, the God that can’t lie, I believe.” Although others might not be able to see it, in God’s eyes, even if Lorraine does one day walk again here on earth, the real healing in her life came when she found Him.
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If you would like to buy one of Lorraine's books or to hear her speak at your church...
Contact her at aznitestar@msn.com
