I Get By With a Little Help from my Friends!

It's been one heck of a week, the ebb and flow of events and emotions feeling like one of those go upside down roller coaster rides. I am sure you have also experienced one or two of those, but I will do my best to be brief here but also to be descriptive. First these words from our friend Matthew:

The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; 
                yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock!

Early in the week two of my closest friends lost family members, one a son that I had just spoken to a few days earlier. Another reminder how precious life is, but also a remembrance to me of what I had also lost. In each case, my heart hurt for these friends because I know the impact of their loss. My condolences to the families and friends in hopes that God will bring peace and serenity to their hearts. 

Shortly thereafter I began to have symptoms of an injury I had suffered twenty years ago and for the sake of brevity and privacy, I will just call it the injury. One of the most well known doctors here in the Daphne/Mobile area gave me a plan through another friend how to deal with it. That was good, but I ended up in two emergency rooms that night primarily because there was not a specialist at the one, so I had to drive myself to the other at 11 PM after a five hour ordeal.

But during that time I made friends with the doctor on duty who had bought a car for his wife from us, and had the care of some extremely nice ER people. They told me this was a transfer and that at the second hospital I should be able to go right in for care. Sounds good, but upon arrival I saw 25 people in that ER who looked alot sicker than I and my thoughts were that this would be another long ordeal. Not so, they got me in within 10 minutes and immediately went to work to solve the problem,

There was the Nigerian doctor who spoke with me about buying a Land Cruiser from us and the beautiful African-American nurse who wanted to trade her Camry on another. All of this conversation while working on my injury and in fact they had to call in a specialist to deal with it, now at 1 AM.  Turns out the specialist was the doctor my original friend had wanted me to see whose office told me I had to wait until August for an appointment, that was why I originally went to the ER.  Do you see God working here?

An hour of much pain and diagnosis followed and at times the nurse had to hold my hands and comfort me that all would be okay. The specialist kept at his work despite my almost tearing off the railings of the hospital bed while he worked. But an amazing thing happened that I know you too may have drawn upon in your time of great stress.

My house of faith kicked in as the winds of pain were blowing. I thought, Jesus had to endure so much more pain for me than I am going through now and as if a shot of massive pain killers had been given me, all was calm, the pain was bearable. And the nurse and doctors commented how well I had endured that pain. Not me, but I Got By With A Little Help From My Friends.

In more ways than one, but mostly because God gave me so much comfort and courage in a time of great need. The night was surreal for me and the care I was given was beyond excellent. The injury will require more work after a temporary fix, but what I continue to be amazed by is that it seems that this faith we all talk about, read about and do our best to believe in is real, there is no doubt.

A friend asked me, "How much do you believe in God?" My answer, 100%. Yes indeed I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends!