It was one of those steamy summer nights.
The air was hot. You could almost feel it wrapping itself around your face.
Each little gust, softly touching you. Your cheek, your forehead, surrounding
you in that hot envelope and filling your nostrils with the sweet reminder of cut
grass and flowers in bloom.
It was too hot to sit around the house. "Let's go fishing," I suggested to the
family.
There were no objections, everyone was ready to feel that four-forty air conditioning in
the car ... four windows down and forty miles an hour.
Gathered were lawn chairs, fishing poles, tackle boxes and just before leaving, a trip to
the freezer to retrieve a white round container. I pulled the lid back to make sure
the contents were intact, and looking back at me was an assortment of chicken gizzards,
the perfect bait for the channel cats I was hoping to pull in this evening.
The Delaware River runs right along the edge of Bristol Borugh in Pennsylvania. I
grew up in that town and I know ever twist of that river. Where the best pools are,
where the big cats crawl around in the muddy river bed, trying to stay cool.
Staying cool was a major project this night. We barely had walked to the river's
edge before a torrent of sweat started pouring down my face.
It always is a little cooler by the river. Maybe it is the flow of the water.
It might only be imagination. But it feels better, so it makes the river a
good place to be on a hot day.
The fish were too hot to open their mouths this night. Tantalizing tidbits of
chicken gizzards were launched into the depths of the river, pulled to the muddy bottom by
the lead weight attached just below them.
And then nary a twitch, no pull of the line. Just dead silence.
Hot air. And the slow roll of the river, as it meandered towards the ocean many
miles away.
Perhaps a new casting point would help.
At this bend of the river, there were nothing but angular rocks along the river bank.
Big rocks, with foot-sized, sloping surfaces. To get from the smooth grassy
knoll we were on, to any other vantage point, you had to traverse the rocks.
Off I went, in search of my elusive channel cat. My foot grasped the first rock,
secured itself and pushed off for the second of the looming jagged footholds. The
second was obtained, a good spot in the distance was observed, so I moved my foot to
another rock that would bring me closer to my destination.
The foot never hit the rock. The anchor foot, left alone to its own devices,
discovered the rock it was on was slimy from the river muck that had washed upon it during
the last high tide. And when my lead foot went aloft towards the next stone,
my back foot slid backwards off of the rock it was on.
Now that was an analytical approach to what took a blink of the eye in real time.
I stepped, and before I even had a fraction of a second to think, I fell, my head
speeding towards the sharp edges of the slippery river rocks. No time to catch
myself. Could not even extend my arms for self protection. It was a free fall
that I had no control over.
I lay quietly assessing the damage. My body was sending me little injury signals
from throughout its length. Arm reported a scrape and a bruise. One knee
reported it had taken maximum impact. But the head, it said it had survived this
fall unscathed.
The head called all the body pieces to unified action. I rose slowly from the rocks
and worked my way back to safer ground. Every step reminded me I was hurt, but the
hurt was over ridden by my anger for not realizing how slippery that rock would be at
such a dusky hour.
As I hit the grassy area again, I turned to look back at the scene of my fall.
There was no smooth stones in a six and a half foot radius, which is just about the
space I need to catch my body in a falling situation.
There should have been no way that I could have fallen in that area without dashing my
head upon the rocks. My arms did not serve as protection. I did not catch
myself at all. My head should have been laid wide open by those sharp rock on which
I fell.
I knew that I served a God who could keep you from falling. That night I also
realized I served a God who can pad any falls you may take during your walk of life.
I did not come out of this totally uninjured, x-rays later revealed I had fractured
my leg in two places, something I am reminded of today whenever rain is in the
forecast.
The first ray I took missed the fractures.
The next day I was off to my first annual conference. It was my admission year.
The service was held at Mother Bethel in Philadelphia.
My leg was screaming throughout the conference, but I walked daily up multiple levels of
steps at Mother Bethel, that is after walking blocks to the church after finding a parking
spot.
I spent most of that conference up in the balcony. There was space there where I
could extend my hurting leg.
At the conclusion of conference I went back to the doctor to re-look at the injury,
which had initially been diagnosed as a sprained knee.
The doctor performed a MRI and its conclusion, the two fractures I already told you about.
The doctor could not help but ask me two questions: "How I had managed to walk
back from those rocks with a double fracture in my leg. And then for a week, climb up and
down the stairs at conference" and secondly and more importantly from his
viewpoint, "How did you manage not to get cut, especially your head, on those
rocks?"
The doctor was Jewish. I am not sure he was ready for the answer I gave him.
"God picked me up from the sharp rocks. God gave me the strength to climb
the stairs and God extended his arms to cushion my head and keep it from hitting the
rocks."
I am not sure whether it was his faith orientation, or just his scientific background,
that put the unbelieving look on the doctor's face.
I asked him when I could get my cast. I had never broken anything before, so I
figured if I had to be in pain, might as well have the cast for my efforts. Plus it
might score some points and I might get waited on if I had one.
The doctor replied, "That is another strange thing. Your leg is already healed.
You do not need a cast. You might feel some discomfort for a little while,
but in a week you should be back to normal."
"And that God of yours, He's pretty good," the doctor confessed, as he
held the MRI aloft and marveled at the injury, and healing, he was observing.
There was no physical or medical explanation for what the doctor saw in the MRI,
just as their was no explanation for why my head was not left in a little pieces
along the river bank.
I knew the answer, God had made his presence felt throughout this ordeal.
Yes, I suffered through several days of pain. But the doctor let me know, I should have
hurt a lot worse and a lot longer.
And yes I fell, but in the fall I did not injure any vital parts.
That fall gave me a whole new prospective on God's workings.
We go through some bad times. And at their conclusion, we being in the flesh,
question where God was when we needed him.
Just like the fall, God is there all the time. Cushioning you through the bad times.
I took the fall but not the major injury. I was in pain, but God made the
painful period short.
Imagine how bad those bad times could have been if God was not there cushioning the blow
for you. If you had to fall and try to catch yourself.
I will never forget that day on the river bank, when the only thing between me and serious
injury, perhaps death, was God's outstretched arms. That day I knew God was right
there for me. How many other days, has he been positioned the same way and I did not
even notice his presence.
If you fall and stumble along the road of life don't question whether God is present,
just thank Him for cushioning the fall.
