I hit my head, now everything has changed

I don't need to remind anyone (and am determined not to make this about COVID) that the past year has seemed like a lifetime. We've lived and learned a lot that we probably didn't want to know. But as this week sped by, I found myself thinking a lot about a lifetime even before 2020's, and about a different person that I haven't seen since this day two years ago.

On February 12th, 2019, White Truck and I went flying into the median on our way home. Some small bit of me still mourns those few seconds of my life that I don't remember and then the rest of me laughs at all the time that I have wasted and wonders why I care about seconds. But, looking back, I realize that it was in that darkness that so much changed. For two years I've hunted for the words to describe that day, but I am without them. What is there to be said about the mightiness of God? Enough is insufficient, great is lowly, perfect has imperfections when compared with His sovereignty. Each word I put thought to, yet I myself don't fully understand. I've tried for two years, but it is far above me.

All I know is that I hit my head and when the light returned, a part of me was not the same. I don't look back on that rainy February day and imagine that I changed instantly or that I suffered any great hurt, but that moment set me on a course that in a week's time would change much.

Physically, I was alright; some bruises, a broken nose, and mild concussion, those things that within a few months were healed and done away with, but to this day there is something that's held on, and if you ask me what that something is, I don't think I could describe it to you. Sometimes I wonder if it was a new zeal for life that I was greatly lacking before, or maybe it's the knowledge that a vehicle in the rear view mirror might have been the last earthly thing I saw if I had hit my head just a little harder or if the next few seconds had gone any differently than they did.

While I was unconscious, my truck had coasted down the road several feet before being guided through a small space, between objects, to safety. Something awoke me in time for my foot to hit the break as I traveled across the median toward oncoming traffic. I don't remember putting the truck in park and don't know how I was able to find my phone where it had flown into the passenger seat floorboard. As my mind told me I would never be able to reach it, I picked it up. While I wiped the blood from its screen and dialed 911 the names of the roads appeared in my muddled head and came out of my mouth without sanction. Moments later I was joined by an off-duty medic who had already radioed for help; he had been traveling behind me for several miles, not knowing that God had him there in that moment for a purpose.

When the rush of an excruciatingly slow few seconds began to fade I thought I would lose consciousness again, and any other time I would have as I'm a quick fainter, but not this time. Soon we were joined by a group of tremendous people - an elite force with whom was a face I recognized and it gave me comfort. My poor truck was driven home in one (extremely dented) piece. It worked then as it still does now. Two hours later I walked out the hospital doors, confused, unsure, in a strange mental place; but I was whole, I was not severely harmed, I was walking under my own power... or was I? Had I really done any of that? The answer is: I couldn't have, I was physically unable - unconscious. I was only the person who had been left completely awe-struck; the incredibly grateful recipient of mercy, faithfulness, and grace.

God is to be praised!

The following week was a tangle of thoughtless emotions. The concussion caused weakness in my legs and forearms. When they were done moving, I was out like a light on the couch, bed, floor, sometimes every 3 hours, sometimes every hour. It was instant and unpredictable. This rendered me not fearful, but angry. I know other emotions were being channeled down that road to anger but I recall the overwhelming feeling of fury, even though half the time I didn't know what I was furious about.

This lasted only a couple of days, and then the good end of change began. I would look at my bruised face in the mirror and know how lucky I had been. I would open my eyes from one of the sudden naps and be so thrilled to see. The first time I again saw family or friends I realized I had never been so glad to see them before. I had never been so happy to love them. I had never been so glad to drive, to go to work, to walk outside, to breathe. My mind didn't understand but it was happy - so, so happy; and as the days went on and my physical body began to heal I basked in that happiness. It was a joy I can not describe. We hear often the expression "happy to be alive" but until I knew that happiness it had never been truly real. I was genuinely thrilled to have been given the chance to live.

Because of the concussion, I was unable to look at any screen for very long, my phone in particular. In that time I began to really see other people, to become a talker when I had always known myself to be quiet. It wasn't that I said things any better, or that it was any less awkward, I just didn't care. I wanted to talk to everyone. This has only grown since those days, my mind makes spoken words no better than it did before but it doesn't matter. God had given me so many incredible people and I saw them for the first time. I realized there was no time to be shy, no time to be quiet, because no matter how many times we hear it and go "oh yeah, I know that", life is so fleeting and a few seconds of darkness can be the difference between living and dying.

Today I drive the same streets (sometimes the same truck when it's not at the mechanic for Elderly Farm Truck Syndrome), work the same jobs, live in the same place, but everything has changed. God gave me a joy I did not and do not deserve. That He can take the worst moments of our lives and turn them into the greatest so that even I, the one who was so angry, can look back on it with thankfulness - it is an amazement and wonder that only He can perform.

It reminds me so much of salvation. When we are helpless; when there was nothing - nothing - that we or anyone else could do, He saved us from ourselves and now even continues to save us from the calamity of this fallen world. He rules and overrules! How else is this all explained? How else can a potentially deadly disaster be turned into a moment of greatness? How else am I able to abide in joy when I should have been marked by fear?

For two years I've tried to put it all into words, but now I realize that I will never be able to because there is no way to adequately explain the Glory of God. All I know is that I felt a tiny part of it and there are not words enough to make it so real to another. I didn't understand what it meant to live, or what a true blessing life is, and through an act of this sinful world meant to harm, God showed me a bit of higher ground.

The Bible says in 1st Peter 5: “And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.” This verse is so applicable to that day on the road and to every day and trial that we pass on this earth. He will have the ultimate victory over all things. He is the Giver of all peace, the Giver of all joy. Even in the midst of chaos, when we are so prone to forget Him, He is our Help and everlasting Friend. He can be trusted. He is faithful even though we are not.

Whatever is great, He is far greater still.

So I hope that you take heart from this story, friends. Know it is not half of what God has done or will do, but is a beautiful picture of who He is. Our Savior.

"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: He that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: He shall preserve thy soul.

The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore." Psalm 121

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