A Christmas Miracle!

You're probably thinking "Christmas miracle" as in the star and the angels and especially Baby Jesus. Well, you would be right, of course! But today I am talking about another lesser miracle, one that happened to our family just before Christmas.

Our friend Curt called one evening in early December 2010 and said, "I've just been looking in one of the fliers I get about farm auctions." I was not too surprised, since I know he keeps up on all that and over the years has gotten some wonderful bargains. But he went on to say, "I don't know why I noticed this item, and I can't remember ever seeing one at a farm auction before, but...they are selling a van with a wheelchair lift already in it." Now I was definitely surprised! "Are you interested in taking a look at it?" he asked. I don't believe these things happen by chance, and I said we should most certainly check it out. Cautiously optimistic. Sort of afraid to hope too much, but really hoping in spite of myself!

We had looked into the price of a new(er) van and realized that without a miracle we could not afford it. Goodness! The price of a van customized with a wheelchair lift is pretty close to -- well, a fortune, let's just say, at least to us. Even the good secondhand ones we saw were priced like new. So we said we would try to squeak every last creaky mile out of the one we have.

And then Curt called...

So a few days before the auction, Barry, Curt, and two mechanic friends went to check it out.

The Red Van

A 2000 Dodge van, raised roof, only 43,000 miles. Good outside, nice and clean inside, MUCH better lift than the old van, everything in order under the hood. It took a few tries to start it, but it had been sitting a long time in a farm shed.

The lift, fully automatic

See how it folds up on itself so you can use the door when the lift is not in use?
(This picture was taken from the driver's seat looking out the middle side door.)

So Barry and I talked and prayed about it and decided what we thought our spending limit should be, and the plan was made. To be honest, we are auction illiterates! But we would bid on the van and see what happened! The auction day was very cold, so Coral and I stayed home, and Barry, Trent, and Curt went to do their best. At the auction, they met Gary, a friend of Curt's, and what a wonderful friend he turned out to be! He knows all about auctions, knew the auctioneers, and was right at home.

My phone rang, and it was Barry. "Gary looked at the van, too, and he thinks it might go for more than what we decided we should spend. What do you think?" Well, I thought Gary was right; it really could go for way more than that and still be cheaper than other vans we had seen. So I said, "I really hate to change the amount that seemed right... but do what you think is best."

Waiting, waiting...then Trent sent me a text: The van is coming up for bid. Unknown to me, Gary had offered to do the bidding for us, and I can just imagine what a relief that was for Barry! Meanwhile back home, I was praying... Lord, you know how much we need a van and how limited we are on how much we can pay. We have asked You to supply for us, so if you want us to have the van, please make everyone else stop bidding!

Another text from Trent: WE GOT THE VAN!! I admit it. I burst into tears, right in my office! Thank you, God! Then I texted Trent: How much did we have to pay? And he said: $7500! Wow! Under our limit! It was such a miracle! When I was sure the van was ours and that they were almost home, I told Coral, "Guess what? Dad and Trent went today and they got us a new van!" Understanding grew slowly in her face, and then she nearly popped her wheelchair seatbelt with excitement. Up they drove in the dark, and Coral and I rushed out to take our first look!

When we could settle down, Barry told me about how amazing it had been to have Gary's help and expertise on the bidding, and I believe God used him to bless us! Just like He used Curt to start the blessing going and to help us all the way along.

The next day, Barry called the lift company that had installed it in the van in 2006 and asked what it would be worth. Guess what they said! "If we were to install that same lift in your van today, it would cost $7600." So, if you boil it all down, we bought the lift and got paid $100 to take the van along with it!

And this is our Christmas miracle!

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One year later...

I decided that, in honor of Barry's surgery, I should post a one-year follow-up. So here goes...

• The Workers Comp doctor (bless him!) had had surgery himself with excellent results, and so he referred Barry to that very same orthopedic surgeon (bless him, too!)
• "You are getting the surgery for all the right reasons." (What the doc said when he found out that Barry wanted to have his shoulder fixed so he would be able to help me again with Coral's care.)
• One of our friends spent a year rehabbing his shoulder, so we were dreading this. But the surgeon told Barry that if he fixed the shoulder and Barry was not back to normal in less than 6 months, he would retire.
• Bright and early one morning, off we went to the beautiful surgery center across the street from the hospital (good location, just in case!)

• It is hard to settle your thoughts down while your husband is in surgery.
• What you don't want to hear after you have spent hours in the waiting room: "Your husband is not coming out of the anesthetic as quickly as we had expected."
• Thank God for the wonderful recovery room nurse who knew everything would be okay!
  

And then:

• Home again. Hubby is a very good patient. The minute he could do things for himself, he did them. He even quickly figured out how to get out of the recliner (which normally needs his right hand to operate the lever) so that he would not need to get me to do it.
• It is a strange sensation to pull and pull and pull on the long tube inside the surgery site in order to remove the empty pain pump. It feels like you are pulling out a long worm...
• The most amazing thing! After the pain pump ran out of juice, no pain! The surgery nurse, who had lots of experience behind her, had told us, "This will be 10 out of 10 pain!" Never had to use the narcotic prescription or any over-the counters, either!
• Weeks of therapy -- very successful because Barry did everything his therapists told him to do and worked hard.
  

SO...
If you go over to that surgeon's office today, you will see that he is still in business! His office walls are covered with pictures and letters from very grateful patients. And we know why! In less than 6 months, Barry's shoulder was truly back to normal, and he was back at work with no limitations.

I had to laugh one day after Barry's right shoulder was all healed up. I saw him moving his left arm all around with a very dissatisfied look on his face. I was a little worried until he said, "Now this other shoulder doesn't feel right! Something in there is popping when I move it!" Nothing like comparing the good with the better to make the good feel bad!

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Afraid...

It is so easy to be afraid.

The story in a nutshell...
January 6 -- Barry falls on the ice at work and hurts his shoulder.
January and February -- The doctor sends him to physical therapy to see if it will mend on its own. He makes progress, but not enough. Doctor schedules an MRI.
March 8 -- Doctor says MRI confirms a full-thickness tear of the distal supraspinatus tendon. He will need surgery and is referred to an orthopedic surgeon.
March 9 -- Barry picks up the MRI films from the radiologist to give to the orthopedic surgeon, since that doc prefers to get the films and not a CD. Enclosed with them is the printed copy of the radiology report. Snoopy me, I dig it out and read it. I discover that there is also a partial tear of another tendon the doc said nothing about. I am also chagrined to see that the insurance doc also did not mention that the radiologist saw a "heterogeneous marrow lesion" in the upper arm bone that he thought needed to be checked out further with x-rays. He even said that a "marrow infiltrative neoplasm" could not be ruled out by what he could see on the MRI...
March 10 -- Barry gets a set of x-rays of his upper arm (at the radiology office recommended by our chiropractor), and he leaves the MRI films so the radiology doc there can compare the two and assess the problem. He brings the x-rays home on CD which my computer obligingly opens up for me... Yes, we can see what they are talking about--a wispy whiter area inside the upper bone just below the shoulder joint.
March 11 -- No news.

So today I was waiting.

Barry left for a very early meeting this morning. Coral stays home on Fridays, so she was still in bed. I was whisking around the house, full of anxious energy, wishing we would hear something before the weekend. The phone rang. The radiology office. They had sent the report to our chiropractor...

For some reason, the kitchen sink is one of my thinking places, and as I worked on the dishes, a familiar verse kept surfacing. I often repeat this verse, so the fact that I thought of it today was no surprise. "When I am afraid, I will trust in you." (Ps 56:3) A sort of statement. An act of the will. A decision today.

But then my conversation with God continued. Me talking, Him listening. I think He is used to that. I tend to talk more than I listen, not often a good thing! I told him how many things in my world scare me. I am afraid of pain, afraid of losing my loved ones, afraid for Coral's future, afraid of suffering... afraid of things that happen and things that might happen...

Quick as a flash, I stopped talking and listened, because He answered me! Not an answer I was searching for or thinking up. One that came and interrupted me. "Don't be afraid! I have overcome the world!" (I looked it up--Jn 16:33)

Worship is not just for Sunday mornings!

I called the chiropractor's office and wanted to make an appointment. He said he could talk to Barry over the phone. Over the PHONE?? So when Barry came home, he called. It is a benign tumor, not attached to anything, just there. And it appears to have been there for some time. We just have not had a reason to know about it.

"In this world you will have trouble.
But take heart!
I have overcome the world."
--John 16:33

I Can't Even Imagine It....Part 3

I'm sorry to be so long in getting the next installment done. Work has been heavier than usual, and time has been hard to find. But to continue...

Barry came home, and the hike was on! I watched the SPOT signals and could see the slow progress, and the terrain map showed me the steep climbing they were doing. It was rainy, gray, and cold at our house, and I knew it had to be colder and maybe even snowing up at 10,000 feet where they were.

On Memorial Day, I watched those little orange bubbles on the satellite map. Would Trent come home with the other two, or would those little signals continue past the coordinates for the end of the trail where the truck had been left?? Barry was watching, too, because he still was not sure the truck was in the right place. And if they got to the end of the trail and did not find it, what would they do? They would have no idea where the truck was! And they would be in the middle of nowhere with miles and miles to even get to phone service. To make matters worse, we discovered in the trail book that there are two different trail heads at the end of Segment 4/beginning of Segment 5. Now we were pretty sure the truck was at the wrong one! The orange bubbles came to an end in a small clearing in the forest that we could see vaguely on the satellite map. We waited. No more signals.

Several hours later, Mike's truck went by my office window. All three hikers were home safe and sound. And this is the story they had to tell us!

About 5 miles before our hikers reached the empty parking lot (yes, the dads had left the truck in the wrong place), they met four other hikers on the trail. They were actually two separate groups of hikers who had already met each other.

One was a man and his wife who were experienced hikers and in great shape but had somehow gotten off their original trail and did not know exactly where they were. The other group was two men who were totally lost because their compass was reading 180 degrees off. North looked like South! They had started out on an easy hike and had gone to much higher elevations than planned because they were lost. This was actually serious for them because they were very cold, and one of the men was visiting for the weekend from Ohio. Even though he was in excellent shape for hiking, his lungs were very unhappy with the elevation he had taken them to, and they were not working well at all.

The night before, the two men had taken stock and prayed for five specific things. God answered all five of their requests, but I only know two of them -- that they would stay dry that night, and that they would find someone who could help them. That night, it did not rain and they were dry. And the next day they met the other couple and then our hikers.

The seven of them continued down the trail and got to the cleared "parking" area where our hikers thought the truck would be, but it was not there! So there were three groups of hikers -- our group who had no idea where the truck was, the man and his wife who did not know quite where they were, and the two men who were lost and cold and having some altitude problems.

When all of them reached the empty parking lot, the couple realized that it was Mike's truck that they had passed earlier about 5 miles further down the road. So Mike and the man set off at a pretty fast pace to get it and bring it back for the others. Trent looked around to see if he could build a fire because he could see how very cold the two men were, but there was no dry wood to be found, so there was nothing to do but wait. The two got back with the truck sooner than expected because another vehicle happened along the road they were on and gave them a lift. Mike's truck has an extended cab, so they were able to fit all seven people in, and Mike drove them to the town where they had parked their vehicles which was actually on the way home anyway.

And so our hikers arrived back home safely. And Trent said, "Because of genetics, I knew that two nights out on the trail, cold and wet, were all I should do until I get over this respiratory thing." And he is making a nice recovery and planning for a later hike instead.

What an amazing God we have, and how He showed his loving care on Memorial Day weekend! Two men, lost and in trouble, prayed and asked Him for what they needed. He gave them a dry night, brought across their path two others who had seen the truck earlier in the day, and then joined them up with the owners of the truck who did not know where it was. "It was a God thing," Mike told us, and he is right!

(To be continued... with one more installment to explain why I can't even imagine it!)

WHIPPING CREAM...

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving where I live. Like almost everyone else we know, we celebrate Thanksgiving with a big meal that we share with our family and friends as we talk about the things we are thankful for and the blessings of the past year. With a little football thrown in for good measure! (But who is measuring?!)

Our elderly friend, Warren, always joins us for Thanksgiving. He lives alone and has never been married. He is an only child, and his cousins live far away, so he joins our family for holiday meals. He sits at the dining room table where he can watch the goings-on in the kitchen and chat with Barry about this or that. And Warren always brings the whipping cream -- real fresh whipping cream in a glass bottle from the local dairy!

Sometimes I am just in awe when I think of his courage. As a very young man, he went to fight for our country in World War II. He was a point man, a very dangerous thing for a soldier to be, and he was shot through the jaw. I look inside myself and I don't see that kind of courage. I remember the day I saw his green dress uniform hanging in his closet... with the Purple Heart...

In June, Warren fell and broke his leg, and even after surgery and physical therapy and lots of meds, his leg still got worse and worse. The doctors finally told him it was an aggressive sarcoma, and today -- the day before Thanksgiving -- they took off that whole leg along with some of the pelvis in an effort to stop the cancer. All these weeks, even with severe pain and fuzzy brain, he has not lost his will to fight. Or his appreciation for good food, something it seems he has been getting very little of!

I've been a bit weepy today. Barry has called me often from the hospital with updates. Warren is out of surgery and awake, the doctor said. As far as he can tell, he was able to remove all the cancerous tissue.

I can't believe tomorrow is really Thanksgiving Day! But thanksgiving is not just a day. It is a lifetime of choices made new every day. Choosing to be thankful.

I gave in and bought a little waxed box of whipping cream... Thanksgiving Day just won't be the same this year!

Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. --I Thessalonians 5:16-18