The Greatest Thing
I once was asked to share with a group of people a time when I was overcome with thanksgiving. I, like most Americans, have a multitude of reasons to be thankful, but there was one thing for which I was so overwhelmingly thankful that everything else paled in comparison. Second place didn’t even come close. The thing was so intimate that I had never shared it with anyone, not even my wife. Yet, I found myself on stage in front of several hundred people unable to think of anything else. So, I prayed and asked God to give me the strength to communicate my experience.
Filled with emotion, a quivering voice, and tear-filled eyes I began:
At 10:00 p.m. Friday, January 12th, 1990, I had just brought my wife and four of my five children home from our high school basketball game. Nathan, my eldest son, just a week from his fourteenth birthday, had invited his best friend, Eric, home to sleep over so they could go rabbit hunting the next day. Nate immediately took Eric upstairs to his room to put away their stuff. I turned on the late news and sat down on the sofa. In a few minutes, the boys bounded down the stairs to where Eric had set his gun case. Eric carefully opened the case and pulled out the shiny new .410 gauge single shot shotgun his grandfather had bought him for Christmas. The action was broken down just like he had been taught in hunter safety class. Nate quickly admired the gun and called me over to inspect it. I told Eric it was much nicer than my first gun. His smile was nearly ear to ear when I handed it back. I reached into my pocket, handed Nate my keys, and told them to put the gun in my gun cabinet for safe keeping. The boys went to my study, and I returned to the couch.
About five minutes later, I heard a loud pop. The boys must have set off a fire cracker, I thought. But they didn’t have any fire crackers, and they wouldn’t have set one off in the house anyway. Then I heard a heavy object fall on the floor. I was airborne in a millisecond and took three strides to my study door. As I reached for the handle, the door opened by itself. There stood Eric, white as a ghost, with my .22 caliber automatic pistol in his hand. “When I took it, it went off! At first I thought it missed.” I took the gun from his hand, pulled him through the door, and told him everything would be all right. As I entered the room, I saw Nate collapsed in a heap in the corner.
Finding the wound wasn’t hard. When I turned him over and straightened him out, I saw a stream of blood nearly the size of a pencil flowing from the left side of his head, half way between his temple and his ear. For a fraction of a second I went limp. Then realizing I had to be calm and strong for Nate so as not to frighten him more, I was able to regain my composure. I gently shook him and hurriedly said, “Nate, open your eyes!” He opened his eyes and tried to speak, but only mumbling came out.
Eternity seemed to have passed before the EMTs arrived. It was actually only twenty minutes. Nate was still conscious, but lost consciousness and stopped breathing twice on the way to the hospital.
The emergency room professionals could not tell us anything, but that he was still alive. Weeks later, we found out that the neurosurgeon, when passing him on to ICU, had said that he might live another two hours.
The next couple of days passed in a blur. Not only did my wife and I not know what day it was, we didn’t know if it was morning or night. We couldn’t get much information about his condition except that they had put him on a respirator. A 2 inch square bandage was placed over the wound. The x-ray showed that the bullet had lodged straight behind his nose about two thirds of the way back. Sometime after dawn Saturday morning, the neurosurgeon met with us and said, “The next 18 hours are critical to his survival. If he makes it to Sunday morning, we will have to make some decisions about surgery.” So, he wanted us to go home and get some sleep in order to be able to think clearly about giving him permission to operate. Relatives took us home because we were in no condition to drive. We were able to get a few hours of sleep and then went back to the hospital that evening. About 11:00 Saturday night, the neurosurgeon met with us again. Still with zero emotions, he explained that the part of Nate’s brain containing the bullet was swelling, putting tremendous pressure on the rest of the brain causing it to bruise and swell. If he survives till morning, in a last ditch effort to save his life, we can do a lobotomy which meant removing the left front lobe of the brain to allow room for the swelling. This part of the brain is the center of emotions. If Nate survived he would not be able to give or receive any emotions. He set our meeting for 10:00 Sunday morning and he would need our answer then. Walking to the conference room at 10 o’clock was like walking the “Green Mile”. With my arms and legs shaking, I opened the door to the conference room and my wife and I sat down. The doctor wasn’t there yet. We waited. Finally, at 10:15, the door opens and in walks the surgeon with a big smile on his face. He said, “Boy do I have good news for you two. Not only has the brain stopped swelling it has actually shrunk to near normal size. I no longer consider this a life threatening situation.”
Nathan made a marvelous, providential recovery. Although he was in a coma for four weeks, in the hospital for three months, and in outpatient rehabilitation for another three and a half years, with the help of school administrators, teachers, tutors, special ed. classes, and summer school, he graduated from high school with his class of 1994.
The week after the accident, my wife and I spent wavering between trying to sort out and bring some order to our new life and thinking and hoping that this was just a bad dream from which we would eventually wake up and be able to escape. By Sunday, grim reality was firmly setting in, and the “normal life” we had been living was looking like a very precious place which we might never see again.
On that Sunday, my wife and I decided that she would go to the hospital to be with Nathan, and I would take our other four children to church as our custom was. The kids told me they didn’t want to go to Bible School because every one would want to talk to them about the accident, and they weren’t ready to do that yet. I agreed and planned to get there just as worship service began so we could slip in with little notice, but as we entered the sanctuary, we were swarmed by teary- eyed friends, well wishers, and genuinely sincere people who were grieving with us.
Finally, the service began, but I found I was unable to focus on worship. All I could do was to pray over and over again, “Father, thank You for sparing Nate’s life. Thank You, Lord, for sparing my son. Thank You. Thank You. Thank You.” Like a broken record, no matter how much I said thank you, I was unable to express my gratitude enough. Then I remembered a verse of Scripture that said one of the works of the Holy Spirit was to make utterances for us that were too deep for words. So, I asked the Holy Spirit to express my thankfulness to God for me. This brought me some comfort, and I began to join the worship. By this time the communion service was beginning. The song that had been selected was, “O God, How Great Thou Art”. By the end of the first verse, I was calming down and started to sing with the congregation. Then came the line, “… and God his Son not sparing.”
Immediately emotion rolled over me like a flood. I leaned forward, gripped the pew in front of me, and placed my head between my arms. As the congregation continued to sing, tears streamed down my face and splashed on the carpet between my feet. I’m not sure how long this continued because I lost awareness of everything around me. I seemed to be alone in a dimly lit room. Soft light was coming from down in front of me, yet there were no walls or floor. A figure of someone or some being was standing down below me and to the left. There was no movement or sound, just silence. Without talking, this form softly spoke to me saying, “Dan, I have heard your thanksgiving and accept it. I was glad to do it for you, but understand this is not the greatest thing I have ever done for you.” I sat back in my pew. My tears and trembling were gone, replaced only by a peace I can’t describe. My eldest daughter touched my elbow and handed me the communion bread and juice as it came by.
I am still more thankful than I can express for God's sparing my son’s life, but I am awestruck by Him not sparing His Son’s life in order to pay the punishment for my sins. In all my life, I will not be able to express my thankfulness for either of these events.
Since the dawn of history mankind has sought after all kinds of remedies to solve the human condition of pain, suffering and death. In ancient times people searched for a fountain of youth, a magic lamp, the “Holy Grail” or a secret potion. In modern times we have pursued power, wealth, beauty, education, technology and fitness with barely little more success. Pain, suffering and death are still with us.
After more than 8,000 years of human history perhaps we should conclude the answer does not lie with man but with God. Jesus Christ is the only person, place or thing that has ever been able to change people’s hearts. The Apostle Paul said it this way to a small group of believers in Colossae, “… the mystery (that) has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”