One of the things I like about God is that He’s got all the time in the world.
Of course, we don’t. A friend called me. He asked if I could help with a project around his house. “Of course,” I reassured him. “I’ve got all the time in the world.”
No.
Here’s another sort of call any one of us parents might receive; friends of mine did receive it. (Names changed.)
*****
November, 2011.
“Hello, this is Officer Gary Boudreau of the Pennsylvania State Police. I’m trying to reach William Jacobson.”
Nothing good can come from a telephone call that begins that way. At first it seemed that nothing good did come from this particular telephone call.
Their daughter, in her thirties. Car accident. Massive injuries including severe brain trauma. Survival itself unknown at present. Hundreds of miles from home. Hospital. Unconscious. Falling into coma.
Airplane. Rental car. Hospital directions. Mother and father—don’t stop. Don’t stop!
There she is. Tubes, bandages, monitors, personnel in white, hushed sounds…she’s breathing, not dead. Carefully phrased professional statements that cannot, of course, reassure.
Angela’s mother, Sarah Jacobson, effectively moved to Pennsylvania, with occasional trips back to Maine. Bill Jacobson, Angela’s father, lived as a bachelor, with trips when possible to Pennsylvania.
Agonizing, day after day. Some progress, then no progress, then falling back, then a favorable therapy report, then dashed hopes of change, then some hope…but muted, careful, cautious.
Time ticks so slowly!
Time ticks so slowly!
Here’s a thing that Bill said, during church, when asked for the latest up-date by our pastor. “Sarah says she wishes we could flip the pages forward in God’s Day Planner, and see.” He hesitated and then continued. “Me? I want to flip the pages back to the day before the accident, and stop there.”
Here’s what Sarah did. Every day, from the very beginning, late in the evening, she sat at her computer and filed a report on Angela’s progress through the website www.carepages.com. Every single day. She told all of us what had happened that day—yes, no, or maybe. She transcribed a biblical passage which had made a difference for her that day, or a devotional of some kind. Sometimes, she wrote out a hymn or a psalm. Sometimes she described a meeting with another parent or patient or medical professional or interested person who was either willing to, or eager to, learn about our dependence on the grace of the Lord.
We all read Sarah’s pages, and our prayer circle grew, and the Comment postings assured the Jacobsons that prayers for strength and hope were pouring in their direction, and that prayers for Angela’s rapid healing were pouring in God’s direction. Our Comments postings were detailed, and fervent.
Angela emerged from her coma.
Our Internet prayer circle became enormous, far larger than the members of our church. Our Comment postings began to include new understanding, which we gained as we prayed for, and with, the Jacobsons. We felt strongly Sarah’s desire to flip forward in God’s Day Planner and Bill’s to flip back, but we were taught patience by what came across as the calm in Sarah’s writing. Oh, her posts might go on for a week with a tone of frustration and fret, but even those postings included a biblical injunction to wait, to wait…to allow God time for His miracle, if He cared to provide one, this time.
Angela could sit on her bed now, with assistance. She could talk a little. She could not swallow. She didn’t understand clearly what had happened and why she was not in Maine.
For every thing there is a purpose under Heaven. Even, there is a purpose in a parent’s worst fear.
We who prayed began to realize that we were witness both to a miracle (thank the Lord) but, maybe more so, to a lesson. God had a happy thing for us to learn, too, despite the fact that we did not want to learn it. Properly, we were awestruck by the excellence of the medical attention made available to Angela. Gradually, however, we were struck with awe at the integrity of God’s message to us…I will do what I will do; My will be done.
It is His will, not ours, that prevails.
One day, Angela, who before the accident had exercised a strong will for control, but afterwards had not, was taken for a drive, and the road surface was bumpy and rough. From the backseat, suddenly, out of her annoyance, the forceful Angela cried out, “Stop the bumps!” Perhaps one thousand readers of the post that night wept for the glory of God; I certainly did.
After more than half a year, it was time for Angela to come home to Maine. She knew where she was and wanted no more of Pennsylvania. She wanted Maine…and as soon as possible lobster and blueberries to eat. Really eat. She would zip around, first in her wheelchair and then later with her walker, frustrated that she could not really eat.
Her travel had been cleared by Pennsylvania’s professionals, and arrangements had been made for her continued therapy at Maine’s premier facility for brain trauma, River Ridge, located in Kennebunk. The one missing piece was locating a nearby place for Sarah to stay (and an inexpensive one—Kennebunk is a pricey real estate environment), since Sarah expected to continue to be nearby to their daughter through most of her remaining therapy time.
Here’s news: God uses the Internet!
I do not often experience a direct instruction from God. Maybe I receive them, but I am infrequently aware of them as such, and I miss His instruction; the more abject I.
Often busy, now and then I skip a Sarah update, especially as Angela began to improve. One morning, I saw the email announcing Sarah’s latest post, but I skipped it. There was another email, more important I thought, to which I must attend. I poised my mouse over that other email, but a voice came in my head.
I mean this literally—a voice, in my head. “Dikkon, open Sarah’s. NOW.”
In Sarah’s post, she asked if anyone could assist with finding an accommodation nearby to the Kennebunk facility. Because of my former sales career, I know hundreds of lawyers in Maine, and they are all on my email lists. I thought, ‘Sure. I’ll try.’ It took 10 minutes to write a cover, to identify the Jacobsons and their situation anonymously, to cut part of Sarah’s post and paste it into my message, and then to send my email request to about one hundred lawyers. Within 15 minutes, I had two solid leads. Within another 10 minutes, because my message had been re-sent by several lawyer recipients to their lists, the Lord had made the necessary connection…my phone rang. It was a woman calling from Vermont who just that week had advertised in Kennebunk for a renter/helper at her comfortable home next door to the treatment facility, where she lives with her young children and has more space than she needs.
I emailed the contact to Sarah in Pennsylvania, who immediately called the woman in Vermont, and 40 minutes after I opened Sarah’s post, the deal was done…provisionally, pending a personal meeting and the conclusion of details. It has worked beautifully ever since.
*****
November, 2012.
Several weeks ago, Bill and Sarah and Angela attended a church dinner! Angela’s first time this far from a facility.
Angela is as pretty as always, alert, interested, and she chatted with many of us in a slow but a comfortable way. One year ago, even if she were to survive at all, it might well have been that she would be permanently comatose. Today, she stays close to her parents, has a small walker for assistance, has tape on the outside edges of her glasses lenses to remind her eyes to work hard…but she’s eating at least some real food and usually laughs at the inconveniences of recovery.
She’s looking forward, finally, to being at home.
*****
With Sarah, one year ago, if I had been given the power to flip forward in God’s Day Planner, I would have done so in a minute. I would have seen Angela back at the church, in one year. I would have been enormously relieved, and I would have high-fived the entire Jacobson family and their extended clan.
But I wouldn’t have learned anything.
God, who has all the time in the world, knows how to teach us, who don’t. His teaching works best when we take some of our time, which we think we control, to listen.
I thank God for Angela’s accident—among the very worst events any parent or child can encounter, and which I do not at all wish upon anyone—because the events that surrounded it during the past three hundred sixty-five days have forced all of us out of ourselves and into the hands of the Lord.
Let’s all of us try to stay there, this time, and not force Him do it again to get His message across.
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