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I want to quickly wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. I am sitting watching Mark Kelly on Piers Morgan talking about his tenacious and blessed wife, Gabby Giffords. He spoke about how if the bullet’s course changed in any way, the outcome would have been even more devastating.
I was reminded that in the third grade I was hurt in school, and instead of being taken to the hospital, the principal took me home to a mother who had just given birth and had no car at her disposal. My step-father had just left for work and this was before cell phones.
So I show up at home with those brown paper towels that were in the bathrooms of public schools so many years ago soaked in blood and plastered to my left side of my head. My mother, high on hormones from just giving birth, takes off the paper towels and howls. Panicked, she paces trying to figure out what to do with a broken and bleeding child and a newborn.
Hebrews speaks about the fact that even though the world was to be subject to our dominion, everything is not under our feet, but we see Jesus, and everything is under His feet.
Jesus showed up. My step-father came back home because he’d forgotten something and I went to the hospital. I ended up with 20 stitches above my left eye. I still have a half moon shaped scar there.
I don’t remember much of the hospital visit, but I do remember my mother telling me that the doctor told her how very lucky I was. Had I been hit inches to the left, it would have hit my temple, with probably death as the outcome. Had I been hit inches to the right, I may have lost my left eye.
As a child this really didn’t have the impact that you might think. Now, watching Gabby Gifford’s amazing story and recovery (and I am in no way comparing my 20 stitches to her brain injury), I am thankful. But more than thankful, I am charged to lean in to find out as Paul states, what I have been apprehended for. I was saved, physically and spiritually, and it behooves me to lean in to God to get direction regarding this new life that I have.
Perhaps you haven’t had an instance where you are aware that God stepped in to save you physically, but we all have access to His spiritual salvation through Jesus Christ. I urge you to place this at the top of your list of things for which you are thankful this year. And in response to that gift, lean in.
