Walking With Christ

Note: I will try to keep the sections of my testimony in a somewhat chronological order with the hope that they won’t be too confusing. I’m doing this because some events will foreshadow others even though I won’t know it until much later when looking back with the benefits of hindsight. I’m hoping to find better ways of organizing these sections so that anyone who wants to read snippets instead of the entire story in one sitting will have a much easier time. Like me, this section is a work in progress.

Factory Reset

To truly appreciate the peak, we often must fully understand the depth of the valley before it.

I started a new job on 10/1/2017.  That day marked the end of a truly difficult and trying season that I won’t get into in this section.  We had crossed our own river Jordan without knowing of the trials before us.

December 5, 2017

I was in a great place.  My marriage with my wife, Alona, had never been better.  I was taking time with my kids.  I was serving in our church.  My relationship with God had never been better.  I was praying and reading my bible daily.  Some may scoff, but I would ask God questions and get answers.  I was getting guidance like never before and I was growing spiritually in ways that I never thought possible for someone like me.

This day wasn’t that different from many before it.  I went to lunch at Wingstop.  I was a regular there.  On the way back from lunch God asked me a question.  That was unusual.  He asked, “Do you trust me?”  Of course, I said yes.  How else can you respond?  That was the end of the conversation.  That would also be the last time I would hear from God for several years.

December 8, 2017

I had gone to lunch at Wingstop with a couple of good friends that I used to work with and was taking my usual path back to work when it happened.  In fact, it was the exact same section of road I was on when God asked if I trusted Him.  Someone decided that they needed McDonald’s bad enough that they didn’t use a turn signal when they suddenly turned into the parking lot.

There were a few, I think three, cars in front of me and they all began to do emergency stops.  I saw what was about to happen and slammed on my brakes as well.  My heart jumped up into my throat and my only thought was that I was about to hit the car in front of me.

The Jeep began to slow down, and I realized that it was gonna be close.  If the car in front of me moved forward just another foot or so I might miss it.  It did.  I must have been less than a foot away from his rear bumper.

I was still leaned forward pushing against the seatbelt with the full force of the stop.  I remember praising God that I was gonna miss hitting the car in front of me.  The Jeep had literally just started to settle back down from the stop.

She never hit the brakes.

She didn’t see anything until it was too late to react.

She was looking for her friend who was waiting in a parking lot across the street.

She was doing about 50 miles per hour.

Her little car went up under the Jeep I was in and hit the rear axle.  It pushed me into the car in front of me.  I had just begun to settle back into the seat when she hit and that added enough force to the swing backwards that it broke the driver seat.  I hit the seat hard enough to bloody my nose.  Everyone always asks if I’m sure I didn’t just hit the steering wheel without knowing it.  No, I was pushed up against the locked seat belt as hard as I could go when she hit.  There was no way I hit the steering wheel.

I must have been knocked out for a bit because the next thing I knew I was trying to figure out why I was looking up at the roof of the Jeep.  I sat up and tried to get out before I realized that the Jeep was still in drive and pushing the car in front of me.  I put it in park and tried again only to remember that I still had my seatbelt on.  Take that off and open the door finally.

I feel shaken and know enough to know that I need to get checked out.  I was still functioning so my next concern was the kid that hit me since I already saw the kid in front of me running back to check on me.  The car behind me had gotten a lot shorter recently and the little girl that climbed out was obviously in shock.  Other than that, she seemed ok.

The kid in front got some minor bumps but was ok.

I was already starting to hurt.

After checking on everyone else and seeing that they were not in a life-threatening way, I called my wife to let her know what had just happened.  Then I called my dad to see if he could help get the Jeep home.  Since it was his birthday, he had gone to town with grandma and my uncle.  In fact, they had just driven by the wreck but didn’t recognize any of the vehicles.  Happy birthday, dad.

We took care of the vehicles and paperwork with the police.  My wife came and took me to the hospital to get checked out.  The ER said that nothing was broken, and I would be fine.

I was not fine.

The following Wednesday night after church, my family was in the habit of going to the next town over, Republic, and getting Wendy’s for the kids.  This was no different.  I remember that the night was cold and super clear.  Lights seemed brighter.  I was looking up at the tower lights of a local processing plant and thinking about how beautiful and bright they were that night.  I blinked.  I felt something pop.

My next thought was about how beautiful those lights were.  What are they?  Why are they moving?

I looked away from the lights and looked ahead only to discover that I was driving a car.  I nearly panicked which caused the car to swerve.  I had no idea that there was anyone in the car until someone spoke up to ask if I was ok.  I panicked again and almost wrecked the car again.  I said I was fine even though I wasn’t.  I knew I wasn’t.  Something was terribly wrong, but I also didn’t know who I could trust.

I had no idea who this person was sitting beside me.  I had no idea where I was.  In fact, I had no idea who I was.  I began asking myself questions trying to figure out something, anything.  I had no clue.  I didn’t know where we were coming from.  I didn’t know where we were going.

Then I heard a voice in the back seat.  Again, panic.  A little less than before but still…

I decided to follow the car in front of us with the thought that maybe we were together.  This worked for a bit.  That car was headed to the same town we were.  As we got close to the town, I saw the glare of lights in the distance and out of nowhere I knew that the lights were our destination.  I had no idea how I knew that, but I was certain of it.  I just had to figure out how to get there.

It turned out to be the Walmart in Republic.  When we got out of the car, I handed the keys to the lady after she got what I assumed were her kids out of the back.  I asked her if she could take me home afterwards because I wasn’t feeling well.

At Walmart, I had found my wallet in my pocket.  I went to the bathroom to go through the contents.  The face on the license matched the one in the mirror so I was confident that I knew my name and address.  The rest of the stuff in there was not very revealing.

We shopped then she drove.

We pulled into the driveway of a house that seemed familiar but nothing more.  I got out and assumed that she was going to leave to go to her house.  She turned off the car and started to get the kids out.

Who was this woman?  Who were these kids?  I had on a wedding ring, so I knew I was married.  This woman had no ring, so she couldn’t be my wife.  That meant that these kids weren’t mine.  I could tell that we knew each other based on how she acted around me.  She seemed relaxed and not on edge.  She acted like this situation was normal for her.  I had no idea what normal was.

She used the keys I had handed her to unlock the front door of the house.  That told me that the keys were most likely mine, which also meant that the car that I didn’t recognize may have been mine as well.  There wasn’t another vehicle in the driveway so there was a logistical problem with her getting home and me getting my car back, but that would have to wait.  There were other questions that needed to be answered first.

I still had no clue who this woman was.

She began to grab the groceries out of the trunk, so I helped carry them in.  She put them in the kitchen and set the rest of her stuff down.  Maybe she was my roommate?  I had to find out.

She went to the bathroom, and that’s when I stole her wallet.  I needed to know who this woman was.  I was a bit shocked to find that her license had the same last name as me.  It had the same address, too.  This meant that she was either my sister or my wife.  Since she had no ring on, I assumed that she was my unmarried sister.

If anyone has seen the movie 50 First Dates, I was Drew Barrymore for the next couple of months.  I would wake up each morning with no clue where I was.  I would roll over and jump out of bed after finding that I was in bed with a beautiful woman.  I had no idea who she was.

She was my wife.  Those were my kids.

It took several weeks before I could remember anything longer than a few minutes.  Even then, I had to run through a list of things that I knew.  I made a pile of post-it notes that I kept hidden to help me remember some things.

It took several weeks before I was able to remember anything long enough to build up the trust required to tell my wife that I was having memory problems.  She was devastated when I told her that I had no idea who she was.

Keep in mind that I had just started my job.  I woke up Thursday morning after this first happened to my alarm going off and telling me that I needed to get up and get ready for work.

I had no idea where work was.

Fortunately, since I had recently started, I still had the new work address programmed into my phone on Google maps.  I knew the phone was mine because it was in my pocket.  What I didn’t know was the pin number to open the phone.

I picked the phone up without thinking about it and my hand moved with muscle memory before I had time to think about it.  The phone was open, but I had no clue how I had done it.  I locked the phone again and tried to remember the pin.  There was nothing.  A few minutes later, I tried again without thinking about the pin.  Thank God that my muscle memory kicked in again.

I was able to replay the memory of it and guessed at the pin.  This was enough to let me open the phone long enough to remove the pin for a while.

I got up for work and put the address into maps for directions.  When I got to the office, I found that there was a badge in the car with my face on it and the company logo.  That let me in the front door.  The only problem then was that I had no idea where my desk was.

I turned into the first familiar room.  Thankfully, that did turn out to be my office.

I had no idea what I did.  I had no idea how to get into the computer that was on my desk.

Fortunately, I hadn’t thrown away the paperwork from when I first started, and my password was written down on one of the sheets of paper on the desk.

I opened my computer and started digging through the stuff that was open.

I had taken a lot of notes about what I was working on before the wreck.  I had enough of the org chart to be sure of who I worked for and who I was working directly with.  Still, even reading the notes was exhausting to the point where I would collapse for a few minutes.

Even simple math would mentally exhaust me to the point where I would need a fifteen-minute nap.

It took months before I was able to do more than 30 minutes of work before passing out at my desk.

I told my manager some of what was going on.  I still didn’t know who I could trust and who I couldn’t.  I’m not a very trusting person, but this trauma made things so much worse.

I was still a recent hire.  My manager was well within his rights to let me go saying that it just wasn’t working out.

He didn’t.

He said that I needed to take the time I needed to heal.  He assured me that my job was safe.

Not only did I lose the ability to form new memories, but I had also completely lost all memories before the wreck.  When my memories started coming back, it was painful.  It was a sharp stabbing pain.  They came in small flashes at first.  Little to no detail.  Someone would say something or ask something, and it would trigger a memory.  Instant headache.  I was afraid of those little stabs.  The things that came back were just more confusing.

Memories slowly came back, but they were always jumbled and out of order.  To make it worse, they didn’t seem like they were my memories.  These things had happened to someone else.  This type of dissociation makes it seem like a personal memory was like something that had been read from a book rather than experienced.  It was like I had read a book about some character, and I could say that I had read the book.  It was a cool story, but it wasn’t my story.

Since the memories that I had were not mine, I couldn’t use them much for reference.  I had almost no frame of reference for anything.  Every experience was suddenly new again.  Foods, sights, smells, everything was new.  It’s overwhelming.  Learning who you can trust and how relationships grow over time while not being able to remember the history that created the relationships that people claimed to have with you leaves you with a huge disadvantage.

I was forced to leave out any past references and just agree with anything that anyone said in terms of historical context.  I basically started every relationship over.  Even with my wife and kids.

This is a double-edged sword.  It forces the opportunity to let go of things from the past.  The memories that were coming back were a problem.  I could remember being close to this person or that person without being able to remember why I avoided them for years.  I could remember other people who had hurt me in some rather painful ways without being able to remember when we had reconciled.

I had to let everything go.  I had to start over with every person I met.

The mental damage wasn’t the only damage.  I had a severe nerve impingement in my neck that caused a tear in part of the brachial plexus nerves.  Those are the ones that control the left arm and most of the nerves from the center of the breastbone to the fingertips on that side.  The compression in those nerves caused my left shoulder and arm to feel like every nerve was bathed in liquid fire.  It was hard to breathe with the pain.

I had another severe impingement just above the S1.  This caused my right leg to be mostly numb.  I still had control over the muscles but little to no sensation at all.  The only thing that I could feel from the right leg was extreme cold.  I could walk outside on a 90+ degree day and shiver because I felt cold.

My hand was on fire.  My foot was on ice.  I was in constant pain.

The muscles in my right leg still worked even though they were slow to respond sometimes.  The muscles would contract but each time they did they didn’t release completely.  This would cause the muscles to slowly knot up until it would cut of the blood supply.  I had to go to a chiropractor four days a week just to be able to walk.  Even with this intensive therapy I would usually lose the ability to move the toes on my right foot after thirty minutes to an hour.  The feelings other than cold never did come back.

I eventually had to have the nerve controlling the left arm cauterized just to regain function in the arm again.  The process was simple enough, even though it took several months to prove to insurance that it was needed.  The result was almost immediate.  The worst of the pain was gone.  It was replaced by an empty dullness.  Everything began to take on that empty dullness.

There were two things that I was able to hold on to after the wreck.  I could remember the peace that I felt.  It was supernatural.  It transcended logic or emotion.  Nothing could ruffle me or disturb me because I knew, absolutely knew, that God was in control of my life and that He had me under his wing.  I also had a promise.  I had been promised that I would be healed.

Once my memory became stable enough that I could remember the events of one day into the next, I began reading my bible again.  I began seeking God again.  I prayed.  I prayed a lot.  I knew that my hope lay in the words that I was reading.  I also knew that I was, in a sense, cut off from the Lord.  I couldn’t sense the Holy Spirit.  I couldn’t hear His words.  It was silent.

I think that was the thing that frightened me the most.  The idea that God had forgotten me or forsaken me was chilling.  Still, I held on to the promise that I would be healed.  So, I went to church every time the doors were open.  I served everywhere I could.  I would go forward for prayer nearly every service.  I prayed.  I begged.  I waited.

The weeks turned into months turned into years with nothing.  There was no change.  I kept praying.  I kept begging.  I kept telling people that I knew that God was going to heal me one day.

I also kept reading the life of Moses.  He had three forty-year seasons.  I knew that there was no timestamp on the promise of healing.  I knew that healing may not come in this life.  That didn’t seem right, but I had to remind myself that my timing and my idea of soon did not come close to what His definition was.

So, I waited.  I prayed.  I served.

I also slowly started to give up on being healed in this life.

March 12, 2023

Our church was beginning a special event that we called the “Week of Power”, and we were going to have service every night for a week with two guest speakers.  Bill Johnson and Randy Clark were scheduled to speak throughout the week.  My wife and I knew that the services of the church were likely to be overwhelmed, so we both volunteered for every service that week.

We had served both services that morning and were back to serve the evening service that night which officially started the week-long event.  I was scheduled to serve at the check-in desk that night because it was expected to be one of the busiest nights.  My wife had gone on into the service since we ended up being over-booked.

Things slowed down and my boss at the church told me that I should go on into service.  No, I was scheduled to serve and that was where I needed to be.  My wife came rushing out just a few minutes later.  She was crying.  She grabbed my arm and begged me to come into service.  She said that this was different than we thought and that I needed to be in there.  I fought her saying that I was where I needed to be.

Finally, I gave in.

The room was so packed, and we were late, so we had to sit on the far left of the auditorium.  The view was horrible.  I couldn’t see anything on the screens without having to sit at an odd angle that caused a fair bit of pain.  It was frustrating.  I didn’t feel like I should have been in there.  I felt like I had abandoned my post.

Then Bill Johnson started to speak.

It was hard to pay attention at first, because I was so pre-occupied with not being where I was needed and my discomfort with where and how I was sitting.  He started off by saying that this would not be like any service that most of us had ever been to.  He listed several scriptures about healing in the bible and said that he fully believed in every one of those, not only as proof of God’s love in the past, but also as a promise for His love today.

He said that he had just received a word about a healing that needed to take place.  He said that it was from a car wreck several years ago that wasn’t your fault.  He began listing the injuries sustained in the wreck.  The brain trauma, the neck, mid-back, low back.  He described some of the effects this damage had.

He had my attention.

He said to raise my hand if this fit my situation.

I did.

He said to stand up.

I did.

He told everyone else to gather around anyone standing.

He began to pray.

I don’t remember anything for a while after that.

I know that I began to pray and thank God for carrying me through this season.  Then it was like the roof of the building was torn off and cast aside.  The whole universe was rolled back like a scroll.  I could see everything.  I could see all of creation.  I could hear the angelic choir singing praises to His name.

I heard His voice.

He said, “I have not forgotten you.  I have not forsaken you.”

Then it was like I had been hit with lightning right in my lower back.  My right leg jerked and started burning.  The toes on my right foot started to move.  I had forgotten how much the feeling of pins and needles sucked.  I never knew that a person could be overjoyed at feeling something like that.

All the pain was gone.  It was like it had never been.  I could feel the toes on my right foot.  I could feel the sock rubbing against them.  My pants rubbing against the leg hurt because the nerves were so sensitive.  For the first time in years my right leg began to sweat.  It ran down my leg.  It soaked the sock.  I was hot.  I hadn’t been more than warm enough for years.

I looked at my wife with tears in my eyes as I told her that I was healed.  The prayers were still going on around us, and others were still praying.  I began to sing and dance.  I shouted with joy.  I ran up the aisle.  I raced up the stairs that I hadn’t been able to take in years without having to stop at the top to let the pain subside.  I did squats.  I think I overdid the squats.  I felt like I tore something the next day.  It was amazing.

Over the next few days, I noticed a lot of other things that had changed.  Memories began to flood back.  Not just like I had read a book about someone else’s life, no, these were my memories.  I could remember the births of all my children.  I could remember my wedding day and how beautiful my stunning wife looked as she walked down the aisle.  I could remember holding my breath because I was afraid it wasn’t real when I first saw her.  I could remember college, high school, and elementary.  These were things that never came back after the wreck.  It’s all back now.

I am back to having regular conversations with the Lord.  I hear His voice again.  I feel the presence of the Holy Spirit again.

Part of my healing came with the challenge to be even more bold with my faith.  I was challenged to be more obedient, to be quicker to forgive, slower to anger, to show more grace, to share more love, and to give my story back to the care of our most high Savior.

That’s why I’m sharing this.  It isn’t my story.  I’m just a, sometimes unwilling, participant in the glorious things that He is doing.  I’m so blessed to be able to witness the miracles that He is working in the lives of everyone around me.  I praise God for opening my eyes to His works.

“How do you know that you have not come to the kingdom for a day such as this?”