ALL THINGS (REALLY DO) WORK TOGETHER FOR GOOD

Yesterday I was “sprucing up” the bushes behind my house with a small hedge trimmer; which I was holding in my right hand. Suddenly, I managed to touch the underside of my left forefinger with the moving blade.

And, in the course of a millisecond, I felt the moving, metal blade slice my finger open, and I, subsequently, dropped the hedger on the ground. And immediately looking at the bloody result, I noticed a cross shaped double cut “looking back at me.”

As I reflected on my accident the next day, the oft quoted pat verse came wafting back to me.

“All things work together for good for those who love the Lord…” (Romans 8:28)

However, upon reflection I remember thinking,

“The only good thing about this event was I made a ‘cut in stone’ (play on words) commitment to myself that it will never happen again.”

Speaking of injuries, about ten years ago I sustained a physical insult, the result of which figuratively added an exclamation point to that encouraging scriptural passage.

Given the condition of my neighbor’s oak tree, and the fact that its limbs hung over my driveway, I leaned a long straight ladder against an adjacent basketball post, and began to climb it; with the intention of cutting off said limbs with a hand saw. (As I reflect on it now, my daddy never warned me not to lean a straight ladder against a round post. I did see him fall off a painter’s ladder once, and that memory should have put me on my guard).

Pt. 2

I was 4-5 feet up the ladder when… it began to wobble to the left.

I realized I had a couple of seconds to decide the best course of action.

You know how at a moment like that everything seems to slow down? This subject has always fascinated me, and, as a result, I did a little research on the topic. The answer is so obvious, but it has always eluded me. It seems that during traumatic, life-threatening moments, such as this one, the brain is on overload, and processes a great deal of information in a very short amount of time causing the situation to seem so much longer.

At any rate, rather than ride the ladder to the driveway, I decided to jump. And it immediately occurred to me that I would prefer to break one leg, than two. As a result, I bent my left leg behind me, and landed on my right foot.

As my foot came down on the concrete, I sensed, rather than heard, my right ankle pop. By the time I completed the fall, I was lying prostrate on the driveway. Now, realizing that I was outside, and I needed to get inside, I managed to get to my feet, well foot, and hop-scotched to my front door.

I have long since forgotten whether the door was locked, but I recall knocking loudly on it, and screaming, “I’m hurt. I’m hurt.” Of course, as my wife opened the door, I found the closest chair, and explained to her what had happened.

Time and space would fail me to detail the number of clinics and clinicians I “went through” before being referred to an orthopedic surgeon a month later. By then, I knew that I had shattered, actually powered, my ankle, and that I would require major surgery to put it back together.

Pt. 3

As the surgeon finished the operation, including the introduction of metal plates and screws, he installed a florescent yellow cast, and after one night in the hospital, I was released to go home.

And while “it’s neither here nor there” in terms of the moral of this story, it may be interesting to note that due to the cast, and perhaps the claustrophobia of wearing something uncomfortably warm, which was equally uncomfortable when I lay in a prostrate position, and which prevented me from scratching my foot and leg, I slept in my lounge chair; more often than my bed.

Sometime before the cast was removed, I was “crutching” through my home one day, and my wife suddenly said,

“Royce, there’s something dark between the top of your cast, and the bottom of your shorts.”

As a result, I stood still, and Jean, (who happens to be a nurse) stooped down to examine “the thing” that shouldn’t be there.

“Honey, it’s a very dark mole, and I don’t like how it looks.”

Of course, I made an appointment with my doctor, and he biopsied the offending mole; only to discover it was a melanoma. As a result, after the cast was newly removed, I submitted to a second major surgery within months of the first, and the melanoma was removed.

Many more times than once, my wife and I have spoken about these things.

My friends, I believe it. I am convinced that had I not fallen from a ladder that day, and had I not had surgery and had the cast installed, I would no longer be “among the land of the living;” since I think it was only because of the florescent yellow color of the cast that my wife noticed the contrasting color of the mole.

“All things (really do) work together for good to those who love the Lord…”

by William McDonald, PhD. Copyright pending