Medford, Oregon, about 1983
The four years we lived in Medford, from 1980 to 1984, prior to moving overseas as missionaries, were four wonderful years! Those years were filled with the joy of planting a church and caring for the people God brought to us, of being a family (a family that more often than not had other people living with us in our home) and of trying to make the mortgage payment and keep the bills paid every month.
I worked part time at a gas station for much of the time we lived in Medford, and the contacts made there became the key to the growth of the church for a season.
Because money was tight, we were fortunate we could heat our home with wood. We went to the mountains several times each summer and fall to cut wood and our wood cutting expeditions became the basis for some of our most exciting adventures!
One Saturday morning, Jean and I drove north along the I5 freeway just past Central Point to where we had seen some trees blown down by the wind. We found a couple of rutted dirt roads that got us to the trees and I fired up the chain saw and began cutting into the maze of tree trunks and branches while Jean started tossing the cut wood into the old Dodge truck.
I was in a hurry that morning, and the cutting was good so I got careless and violated about three things everyone knows about cutting wood from downed trees. Suddenly, as I stood on one branch while cutting on another branch (Don’t ever do that!), my saw cut released the tension on a trapped limb and it snapped toward me, slamming the saw bar and the rapidly spinning chain into my knee.
I felt the shock of it and saw the cut in my leg with bone and ligament showing white and other stuff showing red. My first thought was, “This is going to ruin a good pair of jeans. I hope we can make shorts of them”! I called to Jean and then limped to the truck and got a towel—not very sanitary of course as it was an old towel I used to wipe oil and grease off the saw. Jean cut the leg of my jeans just above the knee and we wrapped the towel tight around my knee and fastened it with a bungee cord. Jean and I threw the wood we had already cut into the truck and I backed the truck around facing toward the road (no power steering!). Then Jean drove home while I kept pressure on the leg. Going to the ER was not an option as we had no insurance and no extra money.
When we got home, Jean pulled the half-full truck into the alley and into the back yard by the garage. Our neighbors Lyle and Glory and their four-year-old son Christopher were in their back yard and saw me get out of the truck holding the blood-soaked towel to my leg. Immediately Christopher wanted to know what was wrong and when we told him, he said “I want to pray for Jesus to heal your leg!” So I sat on the back step as Lyle, Glory, and Jean laid hands on me and Christopher prayed the simple healing prayer of a four-year-old. Then we went in the house and unwrapped the towel and began to carefully wash the dried blood off my knee and leg so we could see the extent of the damage.
I guess I was still in shock to some degree and so I wasn’t really feeling a lot of pain. As we carefully washed the blood off with a cloth, we were amazed to see that the large, long, ragged wound we had both seen as we wrapped my leg with the towel had already mostly healed, leaving only an inch-long cut that we closed with a small bandage. The knee was slightly stiff and a little sensitive for a couple of days. Now I have a small scar, about an inch long, that reminds me of God’s goodness and through the years, I have had no adverse effect from the injury. I was healed by God’s power released through the simple prayer of a four-year-old child!
I’ve thought about this experience many times since that day, and I’ve come to realize that if we’d had health insurance or if we’d had money to be able to pay for treatment at the Emergency Room, the story would be much different. It would be something like, “Jim cut his leg while using the chain saw and Jean quickly drove Jim to the hospital emergency room. The emergency team cleaned the wound, stitched it up, gave him some antibiotics and pain meds. Jim was instructed to stay off the leg for a few days and come back in if it showed any signs of infection. In two weeks they took out the stitches and all he has to show for it is this three-inch scar that looks kind of like a lightning bolt. And it still hurts a little sometimes. But it’s all good!”
I like the “Christopher prayed for my knee and God healed it” version better, because that’s just how it happened.
Thanks for reading my story! As always, I welcome your thoughts and comments!
Grace to you today, Jim