Last Thursday evening I was just about to head to the church for our weekly Bible study when my daughter from South Carolina called with some bad news. Our oldest grandson had been in an accident while out with some friends. He was being taken by helicopter to Charlotte, N.C. to a larger hospital with a trauma unit rather than the local hospital in their small town. All the details that my daughter knew at the time of the phone call was that he was conscious and talking but that he had some pretty traumatic injuries to his face. I headed to the church in spite of feeling extremely upset and concerned. The Bible study became a prayer meeting. One by one by one the people gathered and prayed aloud for our grandson, for my daughter and son-in-law and their other three kids and for my husband and I.
Five days later I am still overwhelmed at the reports from all over the world of people who were and still are praying for our grandson. The body of Christ is a beautiful and amazing thing. Yes, I'm one of those who could add my story of being deeply wounded by "the church" to the multitudes of stories written about that topic on social media. But, in my experience, the imperfect, flawed, fallible church has been a life line for me and those I love more times than I can count. The prayer support we've all received this week was another one of those times.
Of course, my preference would have been that my grandson hadn't been in an accident at all. But, it's easy to see that God protected him even though, for some reason only known in His wisdom, God didn't prevent the accident from happening. My grandson could have broken his neck and been paralyzed. He could have had a traumatic brain injury. He could have easily lost an eye, nose or ear. He could have broken the bones in his face. But, the truth is, he impacted the road with his face from a moving vehicle and came away with just some awful road rash on his face and upper body and some seriously deep lacerations above and below his right eye.
Being thankful in all circumstances doesn't mean being thankful that bad things happen. It's seeing God's hand, His care, His faithfulness, in the middle of hard things. I'm so thankful that God protected him from much worse injuries. I'm so thankful for the prayers of God's people. I'm so thankful for the love and care and support he and his family and we have received. I'm so thankful that God cares for my oldest grandson even more than I do and that He's got him in His loving, capable, caring, compassionate hands.
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