Since I have been old enough to understand the English language, I believed in a sovereign god. I may have not known the whole meaning of sovereign, but I understood who God was in relationship to me. I learned at an early age, that trusting my being unto something larger than me made my existence easier. At first my faith was “blind like”, in that I did not have any doubts about God’s power, even though I did not fully know how he worked. I felt somewhat the same way about my earthly father. I never worried about food, clothes, shelter and physical safety; I knew that my father somehow would provide.
I became a husband with a wife to love when both of us were still in our teens. We had decided that we would spend the rest of our lives together no matter what. With the same kind of trust that I had in God, I had in her. There was never any doubt as to her love for me, and I knew that she was exactly what I needed as a partner for life. We embarked in many directions, some that would have seemed foolish to many, and some may have been foolish, but we were able somehow to survive. We experienced many things on our journey, our children, our education, our work and both our joy and sadness . We did not always agree as touching all things, but in most cases we were able to compromise.
It has been near fifty years since we first said our vows, and life has been for us about the same as it has for many others; sometimes we were up in every way and sometimes we were down. We went though most of our journey without facing much that seemed severe. When there were trying times we relied on a verse of scripture from the book of Romans that says, all things worked together for good. I never really understood what that phrase meant, but we, with unconditional faith, moved on without fear.
Our parents were healthy and lived long lives. There were no major problems with our children either. Consequently, a good part of our life was without even a funeral for a close relative, but in the last few years we have attended funerals for three of our parents. Our youngest daughter had a cancer scare, and others close to us have died too. Each time we faced adversity, we seemed to better understand how God works, but not yet complete.
In the last half year, one of the things that always happen to other people happened to us. Someone came into our office and brutally beat my wife and left her for dead. Her skull was fractured in two places and she had, at least, five other lacerations to her head.
I normally do not come back to the office during the day. I go out on the job and take care of things there; my wife takes care of the office. She had asked me, a few days earlier, to pick up a check for one of the jobs to replenish the account that was running low. For whatever reason, I did not do it that day. Early in the morning of the day of her injuries, I told her that I would get the check that morning. She said that she might have to go out of town for a while to take care of some family business. As soon as I arrived at the job site, I asked the owner to get me a check and she did, and offered to take it to our office when she went to pick up the mail or something. I agreed but changed my mind and decided to take it myself, but on the way I remembered that my wife might be gone for awhile. I decided to stop and call her, it was a fairly large check and I didn’t want to leave it in the office with no one there. Again, for whatever reason I decided not to call, but to go ahead and take the check to her.
When I opened the door to the office, I saw blood on the floor and on the walls, but did not see my wife. After calling to her and getting no answer, I found her on the rest room floor, all covered in blood and incoherent. She could not tell me anything at all about what had happened. There was blood on the furniture, walls and floor, but none near, or on, the telephone. Apparently, she had not tried to get help, and she probably would not have answered the phone had I called. I leaned her against a nearby wall and called for an ambulance. It was not a long wait, but it seemed much longer. I realized that she was hurt bad, and I knew that I did not know how to help. About all I could do was hold her bleeding head to my chest and pray. I remember talking to God about it. I acknowledged that she was his, and I remember telling him that if he wanted her more than me, I would understand, but that I loved her and wanted to keep her. Then the ambulance arrived, and they proceeded to get her ready for the move to the emergency room.
The drive to the hospital gave me time to reflect on possibilities. I had no idea what had happened. I did not know how bad she was hurt, but I wanted her to be alive when I next saw her. I imagined that she had fallen and had hurt her head on the concrete floor; I did not want to believe anyone had harmed her.
The ambulance preceded me by a few minutes, and at first I tried to catch it; I don’t remember why. About half way, I realized that I was alone, driving fast, and thinking about our life together. I remember asking God to keep me calm, and to give me composure before I got to her room. I remember telling him that it was in his hands as for I was concerned, and that I was going to let him take care of it. There came a peace that I had not felt before: I had never needed Him this much before either.
As I thought about possibilities, I began thinking where I might find a copy of her living will. Again, I remembered the verse form the Bible that said that all things work together for good. And now, I remembered that it was in the eighth chapter of Romans and was in the twenty eighth verse. I think I was seeing it as a promise from God that she was going to be all right. Whatever I thought at the time, I now know that I am thankful for the comfort I felt as I felt His presence.
We were fortunate to get a good neurosurgeon as her lead doctor. He knew how to keep the trauma to her head from causing more damage to her brain. He reassured me that everything was being done for her care, and when she came out of the coma, we would know more about any damage to her mind. During the seventy first hour, her eyes opened, and we felt like a milestone had been reached. I remember walking the halls of the hospital and crying tears of joy and thanksgiving.
Through all of the hours, we were never alone, friends came, called, prayed, offered to help, and did help in many ways. I know people who have no working relationship with God, and do not have many friends; I wonder how they get though the hard places.
It has been six months since she was hurt. She is home now, after spending time in intensive care, in the hospital and in a rehabilitation facility, and each day is better than the day before. I think back many times to the events before and after she was assaulted, and I understand things that I did not understand before. Had they not happened as they did, I might not have gone back to the office and found her. Seeing her sooner might have been too soon. Finding her later might have been too late.
I believe that God has all power, but he has given choice to people, and by that gift many bad things happen. The choice to assault my wife was not God’s, but that of one of his subjects. I know that God does not force any one to do, or not do, but gives one absolute freedom to choose. I also believe that he knew that things would be this way long before they were, and he may have been preparing us for most of our lives.
I wish my wife had not suffered, we say, “had not been hit on the head”, for that I am sorry, but through that hurt, we had the privilege to experience the absolute grace of God. We would not like to go through it this way again, but we think with all sincerity, that we may look back on this experience as one of the high points of our lives. One can never really know the goodness of God, and goodness of his people, until one needs it.
Someone asked if I was angry, and I said not with the person who committed the act. I settled my feelings about him as I first drove to the hospital. I want the guilty person to pay for his crime, and I am not ashamed of that feeling, but I need my mind to be clear for things other than vengeance, consequently he is seldom mentioned except when my wife prays for him. My concern is with our state correctional system that turned a man loose that was still a threat to our citizens. I watch our legislators when they are in session, and I see how they spend money. I am not convinced that bed space management is excuse enough for what happened to us.
