By now, most of our friends and all of our family know what happened in our lives on July 4. The unknowns that morning were scary. But after the hospital and initial doctor visits we had more answers.
Jeff fell from scaffolding. Not as high as his fall in Bolivia–but this was onto concrete. His head and right shoulder took the brunt. He had a pretty bad concussion, broken and dislocated collarbone, broken rib, and fracture in the third vertebra. The extent of the fracture was unknown then. But I can promise you MUCH prayer ensued. And I believe God made that unknown fracture so insignificant that the final ex-ray and MRI showed a different picture than the initial one. It was more “like a “shin-splint” in the neck”, according to Dr. Lee (spine specialist). I believe that was the result of the prayers prayed by people here and in Bolivia.
The collarbone, dislocated forward rather than inward, which was “good”, meaning no surgery required. But they said he would always have a knot….well you know what I believe???? Yes. If you know me at all–you know I believe God can absolutely resolve the knot. Will HE? I don’t know what He will do.
Sometimes, like in Paul’s life, He chooses to leave certain things so that our weaknesses become a place in our lives where HIS strength shines. I may not know what He will do, but regardless of what He does, I know He can do ANYTHING….and sometimes, that “anything” results in using what we see as a weakness, to show us that through HIS strength we can accomplish whatever He puts in front of us.
He’s done it too many times before me–for me not to know this today.
Because of the concussion and his memory loss, Jeff repeatedly asked the same questions. “What happened? How did I get here? What was I doing?” With great patience, we each answered these questions with the same response: “You fell from scaffolding. Juno brought you. You were fixing one last board on the side of his house.” For several hours this went on. He doesn’t remember any of that…but he now remembers all his other lost memories (ALL Praise to GOD!!).
This morning in my prayer time, these questions came back to me. Many times in our lives we wind up in places we had no intention of ever being.
Our circumstances were the result of our actions–or many times, our “inaction”. The teen-mom never intended to be a mom at the age of 15. The young man never intended to destroy his mind with the alcohol and drugs. The couple never intended to end up in divorce court…
What happened? How did I get here? Most likely–guards were let down. Armor was not worn (spiritual armor). Our minds become distracted with everything going on in the world–and there is some bad things happening everywhere–yesterday’s (as$@ssination) attempt was a prime example of the ugly.
If we are not careful, our words, actions or inactions–and our attitudes can wreck our own lives and the ones we love. That’s what the devil wants. Wreckage piling up like an interstate traffic pile up. Once there–it’s mighty hard to get out.
Jeff’s accident was the result of some not-so-fancy footwork. But again, God had His mighty hand on him because just as in Bolivia, it could have been MUCH worse. We could be attending a funeral instead of church this morning.
I just want to pause in the “devotion-lesson” today and say a huge thank you to our Evangel Church family and our church in Bolivia, Centro Familiar de Adoración all our family and friends, both here and there–thank you. Your prayers have made a difference! We are believing for MORE! 🙂 We know NOTHING is impossible with God!
I will take this back up later–but I feel like someone needs to be reminded right now, pay attention to where you are and what you are doing. One misstep can land you where you don’t want to be. One word spoke in anger can do more damage than you can imagine.
I don’t want to find you asking the same question of “what happened?…. in your own life.
Jeff & Angie 