Labor Day found me falling out of our boat as we put it on the trailer. Time stopped, as I tumbled towards the trailer and concrete below. I flung my head heavenward and whispered a prayer “don’t crack your head on that winch”.  I crashed down onto the trailer’s metal tongue shaking the hitch, trailer, and boat.  Connie raced out, inquiring  “are you alright?”  I looked over my appendages to check.  Minor scrapes and coming bruises but my head dodged the blow and nothing felt broken.  I chortled an answer: “well I was better a minute ago”.    

Around 3am Thursday a nasty bug invaded my routine. Thursday I hovered near the couch. Friday I worked from home because no hospital patient needs a visit from an infected preacher.  Saturday, finally feeling good enough to be up and about I went to my shop for some wood carving.  At 10:59am the knife slipped and I sliced open my left thumb.  My thumb was a mess and felt numb.  Rebecca and others a Harton ER were great sewing “mattress” stitches into my thumb.  Within 2 hours we returned home.   With a little rest and “texting rehab” my thumb should be fine.

In some ways it seemed like a lousy week.  Yet, strangely it was a good week. Each morning after the fall, the bug and the slice I awoke to gratitude. I am grateful I cut my thumb seven minutes from the ER and not near a campfire 5 miles from nowhere just before dusk. I am grateful it was just a bug. I am grateful my fall did not crack my head open which is my only part improving with age.  I am grateful for family members who helped button cufflinks and open medicines jars for me.  

In 2 Corinthians 4 the Apostle writes:  Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. ¹⁷ For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. ¹⁸ So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven