Once there was a man on our street who I knew was watching our house, every single day. And even worse, he was constantly leering at our children. Anywhere else this occurred, they’d call the cops on him. But in Florida, they elect him to the Neighborhood Association.
Anytime my teenage kids parked their cars wrong, someone from the neighborhood association was calling us up to threaten us. It was like Gladis Kravitz, the nosy neighbor from Bewitched, lived across the street from us. Every day, he doted on his manicured lawn and waited for us to do something he could tattle on.
Some people would call him a “grumpy old man”, but I don’t think his age was the problem. I have a theory about old age – it only serves to intensify the kind of person you already are. So if you’re sweet and optimistic, you simply become more so with time.
But if you’re bitter, that bitterness metastasizes until you reach the rank of full-blown curmudgeon in your latter years.
In contrast, last week I watched an older gentleman as he gently and patiently helped his wife get out of the car. He then lifted her wheelchair out of the trunk, then lovingly guided her over to it. He was so careful not to rush her and made sure she didn’t waver or make a misstep. To me, it was the perfect picture of what a marriage should be toward the end of our years.
I thought to myself, “That’s the man I want to be when I get older.” Maybe that’s because handicapped wives are something I know a thing or two about…
Several years ago, my wife had a terrible car wreck. She was driving home from church on Sunday around noon and lost control of the car. She over-corrected, careening off the road and rammed full speed into a tree. She was driving my daughter who was around 5, and my son who was a few months old. Oh, and one other detail – she was pregnant.
I remember coming upon the scene and seeing my family laying in the grass of someone’s front yard, with paramedics working on them. I remember the chaos, the uncertainty of what to do. I remember the huge tree they hit, and the mark our car left on it. I remember our van, and how the middle front section had compacted in on my wife’s right leg. She didn’t even realize her ankle was completely crushed as she frantically tried to get to our kids, now laying a short distance away in the grass.
I paced outside the emergency room, as teams of people attended to my family. I really didn’t know what to think, and I didn’t want to stop long enough to feel anything. But I remember the face of my pastor when he walked down the hall toward me, and how I buried my head in his shoulder when he hugged me.
The next week was spent in the hospital, going from one floor to the next to check on my wife and kids, all in separate rooms. I remember holding my little daughter’s hand as she lay in children’s intensive care, her head wrapped and her face swollen. They said she had a hematoma on her brain, and there could be serious complications. My infant son was probably in the best condition, suffering only a broken foot.
But my wife was hooked up to machines in the maternity wing, as doctors tried to treat her while monitoring our unborn child in her womb. I spent the night there for the biggest part of a week, rubbing her limbs as they ached, calling for the nurse, hopping from floor to floor.
Thankfully, the hematoma on my daughter’s brain went away without surgery, my son healed up fine, and the doctors determined my unborn daughter was healthy and unaffected by the trauma. However, my wife’s leg would never be the same. We entered into a long and painful recovery process at home, while caring our kids. I wasn’t sure how I would meet their needs, care for my wife who couldn’t even make it to the bathroom on her own, not to mention hold down my ministry job.
Two wonderful things happened during this time of trial in our lives.
First, I learned the power of a church. People I hardly knew from our church started showing up to clean the house, mow the lawn and care for the kids…not to mention the tons of food that were brought to our home every day without fail for more than a month. After surviving several tough ministry experiences in the past, God used this painful circumstance to bring healing to our hearts through the love demonstrated by our church. We felt the love of God’s family joining their arms around us to meet every challenge. It was an experience that to this day defines for me what a real church can be and should be.
The other wonderful thing was that my wife and I became inseparably welded together by the experience. Caring for people’s physical needs has never been my forte, but I became devoted to her care during this ordeal. Let’s just say there’s a bond that comes from emptying someone’s bedside potty that nothing can sever!
To this day, her recovery period has been the defining moment of our marriage. If there was ever a chance we might drift apart, God welded us together that month. My wife still deals with pain every day from that accident, and I grieve when I see her suffer. But in both our memories, that horrific accident is the most sacred, God- breathed experience of our lives.
The biggest lesson we learned was the things meant to destroy you are also the greatest vehicles of God’s power in your life. But the difference is all in how you respond.
When I see my wife suffering still today with extreme pain in her leg, I suppose I could curse God for allowing it to happen. I could be bitter when I see her scars and the atrophy caused by an ankle that no longer bends.
Instead, all I want to do is sing praise to a God at the top of my lungs for putting us through such a painful trial, knowing it caused Him great pain to watch us endure it!
But I see people around me who have gone through painful things, some not as bad as ours, responding with bitterness and anger. They resent a God who would put them through it. They demand answers, ask “why me”, and resent those who seem to have it easier. They pity themselves, refusing to realize the rest of the world has its wounds as well.
I wonder, “How much more pain must you endure before you learn the lessons of compassion, mercy, and forgiveness? How much more hurting before you lose your stomach for guile? What will God have to do to break you, and how painful will that be?
As that worn out cliche goes, “every moment we have is indeed a gift – that’s why we call it ‘the present'”. Corny yes, but still true. While I’m handing out Hallmark Card epigrams, don’t forget the one about choosing to let struggles make you “better instead of bitter”. It may sound trite, but it’s actually the truth. We all have a choice, and that choice makes all the difference.
Every time we’ve returned to that area of the accident, I’ve looked for the mark left Dawn’s car left on that huge tree. I never failed to notice it whenever I drove past. Then one year I noticed the tree wasn’t looking so good. Eventually, someone had to cut it down, leaving only a stump. Then later, even that was gone. Seems like both my wife and the tree had received trauma, but only one endured it to thrive while the other one died. Dawn has a limp to this day, but she’s still standing! Same blow – different response.
Regardless of what life throws in your path, you can simply embrace the “better” over the “bitter” and thank God for every moment He gives you. Because nothing is ever “a given” – it’s all a gift.
So…which one will you choose to be – the grateful survivor with a permanent limp, or the stump your accident left behind?
