I took a nasty fall the other day.

But to be a little more exact, the other day of which I speak occurred a bit over nine years ago now.

I remember it just like it was the other day, though.

The boys and I were a couple months into building our house, and it was a cold, drizzly November day.  I was no more than three feet off the ground, nailing on the facia board to the eave of the garage.  The board was warped just a bit, and I was pushing, off to the left of myself and up, as much as I dared. 

This put a slantwise strain on the ladder I was standing on, and due to the fact that one of its legs was perched on a partially frozen clod of dirt, did the deed that I wasn’t quite prepared for.

That leg of the ladder skittered off the clod, and the whole ladder bounded out to my right.  Since I had both hands on the board, up over my head, and since I was only three feet off the ground, I didn’t have a lot of time to prepare for a soft landing and slow taxi afterwards. 

I caught a vivid glance of myself lying on my left side in the air above ground, and the ladder lying on its right side as I came in for landing.

Something felt like it snapped in my left shoulder, but I sat up and flexed my arm and shoulder and didn’t feel anything really, so I got back to work.

Until an hour later.  Then it became obvious that I couldn’t lift my hand or arm above shoulder height without hearing myself gasp a little. 

But the show had to go on.  We had some guys coming over the next day to help sheet the roof and we needed to be ready for them.

The next day didn’t go so great.  Every time I handed up a 4×8 sheet of roof sheeting to the guys on the roof I kept hearing myself gasp.  And I noticed I was somehow getting those sheets up there mostly with my right arm and a bit of a jump to launch it the rest of the way to the waiting hands above.

Nights were crazy.  I couldn’t roll over without reaching over with my right arm and lifting my left arm over to where I wanted it. 

Getting the mail was the worst.  I’d reach my left arm out the pickup window like always and about halfway out, my shoulder would visit with me in no uncertain terms.  And after said visit, I would always reach my right hand over to hold up and push my left arm the rest of the way out to the mailbox.

A couple of weeks later we were visiting a neighboring school to listen to their Christmas program.  My shoulder was fairly uncomfortable, sitting and listening to that program.

A thought ran across my mind and left its footprints very clearly imprinted.

“You should pray that your shoulder will be healed.”

I thought, okay, I’ll do that when I get home.  The brother of the first thought made himself just as clear when he said, “No, right here.”

I argued back that I was listening to a program.

“That’s okay, you can slip a prayer in anywhere you want, and God will hear it.”

So, I prayed there.  Nothing fancy or special, just a quiet little thought that God would heal my shoulder in his time and way.  I also included that I wasn’t sure why I was praying here but surely, He would understand.

And then nothing happened, except the program came to an end and we went home.

After a couple more weeks of this, we made a doctor appointment to see what was going on.  He had me do some exercises for him.  He said I still had a nice amount of strength in that arm, but he suspicioned a torn rotator cuff.  He wanted to give me a steroid shot which he said would narrow it down to that or a case of inflamed ligaments. 

I said sure, go ahead.

Until I saw the length of needle he had on his syringe.  Shots or blood hasn’t been a huge thing to me; this one looked like it might be a thing.  I consoled myself that he had an extra length of needle on there that he didn’t plan to use. 

He told me he had to find the right place for this shot and would need to get it into the middle of the joint. 

Mmmhmmm. 

I watched as all two inches of that needle disappeared.  I didn’t care at all for the sensation it gave me when he depressed the plunger.  It felt like my whole shoulder was going to explode.

But that didn’t give the instant relief he said I would get if I had the inflammation problem.  So, it was over to the hospital for an MRI.

I had never had one of these done on me before and was interested in the process.  But I started noticing things; like that the door to the room had three hook and eye latches all connected to the main bar.  And that the door itself was a good 4 inches thick.  And that the guy had the heat turned way up in there for some reason. 

I took a look into the tunnel where he planned to cram my sweet body down, and asked, “Do you ever have folks up and leave right in the middle of the process?” 

“Yeah,” he said.

I calmed myself with memories of all the times I had to slither into the bowels of the combines I worked on, in far less comfortable circumstances and far less clearance than this as I was motorized into that tunnel on a hard, very flat table.

I was told not to move in the least and that this would take 30-45 minutes.  I was also told he could see and hear me if I had trouble, but that he would have to shut the whole process down and unlock the door if I hollered.

I’m convinced that machine messed with my guts.  I could feel them moving in all different kinds of ways when I heard the sound of the testing equipment move down my body.

And it kept getting hotter and hotter in there and my shoulder was really talking to me by the end.

Finally, it was done, and we went to Wichita for a surgeon to look at the MRI and to tell us of what procedure he wanted to use.  He told us it was definitely a torn rotator cuff and we scheduled surgery for a couple of weeks out.

I had wondered, off and on, about that prayer I had prayed some 6 weeks earlier.  I guess I figured that it had been answered one way or another and I was mostly fine with that.  Now, though, as I was facing surgery for the first time in my life, and a little bit scared of it at that, I did begin to wonder why it hadn’t been answered in a way that prevented what I was about to go through.

I was a week away from surgery and really dreading it.  Not only the surgery, but also the recovery time, which looked to be around six months.  I wasn’t sure how the cash flow was supposed to keep flowing during that time.

One evening especially, I was thinking a lot about it all.  As I got ready to take my shower, a thought just as clear as the one instructing me to pray said, “Lift your left arm up.”  I was walking into our bathroom when I had that thought, and on impulse I lifted my left arm up, expecting it to complain like it had all along about the time it got level with my shoulder. 

But it didn’t complain at all.  And it kept on going up, all the way to the top of the door jam I was standing under.

I was so amazed, I walked out to the family and said, “Look at my arm!” I shot it up to the ceiling and my good wife’s jaw dropped quite a ways, almost to the floor.

We didn’t know what to do, with surgery only a week away.  Was this for real?  We scheduled a quick appointment with the doctor and the next day I went into his office and met his questioning look.

I told him I thought something had changed with my shoulder.  He said, “Yeah, I knew it had before you told me, by the way you took your jacket off.  What happened?”

I asked, “Do you believe in prayer?” 

“Yes,” he said, “That answers everything right there.” 

I asked him if he thought it might be a short-term thing of sorts.  “No, you are healed,” he said.  “I’ll text the surgeon up right here and cancel your appointment.”

To be honest, his faith was greater than mine at that point.  But, nine years later, my faith doesn’t shake anymore. 

Every once in a while, there is a click in that shoulder when I lift my arm.  I smile at the little reminder from the One who likes to let me know He is the one who heals all things and I say a little prayer of thanks right then and there regardless of where I’m at or what I’m doing.