by Dan Dufresne                                                                     4/14/08

A buddy of mine, named Bill, called one day to ask if I would come over and help him demolish an old deck. It was a warm afternoon when I and 2 other friends showed up to begin the demolition process.  I was looking forward to seeing these guys.  We had been a tight group for many years, but things had recently changed.  We had a new priest at our church and he had made some changes which seemed to polarize the parishioners. Some had left and several others were displeased with our new priest’s seemingly new direction for our parish.  Our new priest was involved with the “Life in the Spirit” seminar and spoke about it from the pulpit on an almost weekly basis.  Maybe it was his approach coupled with the changes or just the overall feeling of dread that was permeating the church at the time. For this was taking place during the height of the priest scandal.  I remember questioning a lot of what I believed and trusted in at that time in my life.  I wanted to deepen my relationship with God, but I didn’t know where to turn. I thought I could get a read on things from these friends knowing they all had their own questions and opinions.  One of my buddies, Jim was particularly critical of the Life in the Spirit program.  He disliked it enough that I took it at face value that Jim had been to one and did not like it.  When I told him I was thinking of checking it out, he told me I would be bored to tears.  I asked Jim what he took issue with and he told me he had never been to a seminar.  He hadn’t even heard from anyone who had been to one.  

We had the deck off the house in less than an hour.  We were removing debris from the area when Jim asked me to help him move one of the longer support members.  As I backed out carrying one end of a rotted 2” x 10” I felt something sharp puncture the sole of my sneaker.  I immediately found my foot impaled on a large rusty 12D nail.  It was in deep and I unthinkingly reacted by standing on the board with my other foot and pulling my impaled foot off of the nail.  Blood shot out of my sneaker in a pretty strong stream and my friends recoiled when they realized what I had just done.  I soon found myself being driven to the hospital to get the wound cleaned and to get a tetanus shot.  The doctor who treated gave me “the worst case scenario” about what may happen to my foot as a result of my accident.  He asked me to stay in the hospital bed for a while to make certain I hadn’t picked up one of those flesh eating infections or something of that nature.  I had a little while to sit and relax and think about life and, specifically, my spiritual life. 

As I sat there, I began recalling my previous hospital visit a few years earlier.  On that occasion I lacerated the palm of my hand with a knife while trying to hastily fasten a funnel.  I had driven this very sharp knife into the very center of my palm as I slipped while attempting to cut through the cap of a plastic soda bottle. The knife was not your typical household implement.  This knife was microscopically sharp and it had been removed from a large garment cutting machine which had been overseas in India. The doctor at that hospital had put me on antibiotics fearing the worst.  He told me there was a good chance my guitar playing days were over.  Against those odds my hand healed pretty well within few weeks, but I had a large dime sized lump in the middle of my palm.  My hand would throb at any given time as if someone was trying to drive a nail through it, but I could still play guitar o.k.  When I went to see the doctor for a follow-up months after my injury, he told me that lump would be there for life.  He described the lump as scar tissue.  He said it may even get worse and I might need surgery in the future to correct any number of problems.  He said I was very lucky to have as much movement as I had because I had damaged several nerves.  My own physician confirmed the same when I saw him for my physical later that year. 

As I sat now in a hospital bed distracted by my injured foot, I suddenly realized that the lump in my hand was completely gone.  I also realized that my hand hadn’t throbbed in a very long time.  The only thing I could think of doing at the time was giving thanks to God.  I also prayed for His guidance and I decided that I was going to the next “Life in the Spirit” seminar.  I’m glad I went because it has opened a lot of doors for me spiritually.  Those doors have never closed and I have an ever deepening relationship with God which is exactly what I asked for.  During a subsequent visit to my own physician he used the word miraculous to describe the lump being gone. 

It took a few weeks before I was able to put my full weight on my foot, but it has fully healed without further complications.  I’ve only realized within the past few days how strange the circumstances of these injuries were with respect to where I was spiritually.  It all came to me when I realized that another injury I received a few months ago was finally starting to heal.  This injury and its swelling have lingered much longer than I would have expected.  My doctor had no explanation and an X-ray shows no foreign object is present.  I’ve had persistent soreness as if there is something lodged just under the skin.  Maybe God knows I’m a slow learner and He wants me to know He’s always at work in my life.  Did I mention that this newest injury was the result of a mishap with a thorn bush?