My earliest memory was when I was 3 years old. I don't remember most of the events. I don't remember my mother putting me to bed that night with what she thought was a case of the flu. She discovered the next morning that her diagnosis was incorrect when she couldn't wake me. I don't remember the next 24 hours at all ... because I was in a coma. She took me to the doctor who diagnosed me with meningitis H-Flu. The doctor told her that it typically kills in 24 hours. And the doctor told her they had no treatment. I don't remember the trip to the hospital, never heard the discussions between my parents and the doctors regarding prognosis and options. I wasn't aware of the experimental drug they gave me and only found out later that others had died from it. No one told me that all my family's friends and congregation and family were praying for me.
My first memory, then, was waking up in a crib. I know ... that sounds mundane, but I was 3, for Pete's sake, and I wasn't in a crib anymore. Worse, the first thing I saw was that my wrists were strapped to the sides of the crib. Now that wasn't normal. I looked down toward the end of the crib and saw my right leg suspended in a sling of some sort. There was a huge glass bottle of fluid (everything is huge to a 3-year-old) hanging there with a tube that came out and ran through a needle into my ankle. A nurse looked up from my ankle and said, "Oh, you're awake. You're okay. You just let me know when this bottle is empty, okay?" And she walked out. Eager to do my job (truth be told, eager to get that needle out of my ankle), I called, "It's empty!!!" She came back, smiled warmly, and said, "No, it's not. Don't worry; you'll be okay." She was right.
Later, that ankle got infected, and to this day I have a scar there. I see it every time I put my shoes on. It's not a bad thing. I wouldn't lose that scar for anything. It's a reminder, every day, that doctors and medicine and skilled workers -- and there was no shortage of any of those -- didn't save me at the age of 3. God did. It's a reminder, when I'm questioning my life, that God saved me for a purpose -- for His purpose. It's a reminder that, no matter what my opinion of me is, God has a use for me. Why? Because I've seen it. Because I'm a witness to God's grace and mercy in practical, 3-year-old terms and in broad, spiritual, unfathomable terms.
2 comments:
So many of us could easily overlook something like this a God at work. We need to be reminded that even in the "mundane" uses of scientific endeavor, God is over it, making sure it comes out to His plan.
Another impactful testimony installment. So glad you are here to share it with us!
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