It Can Happen in an Instant: Part 1
In a split second, our lives can change. It can range from the worst thing imaginable to the most joyous occasion. One day you could be here and the next you’re gone. Or on the other spectrum of instantaneous happenings, many individuals have become millionaires overnight! Be it good or bad, anything can happen in an instant. Twenty-four years ago something just as dramatic as becoming a millionaire overnight happened to me. I was not expecting it. It just happened!
As a teenager, I used to attend a Christian youth camp called “Mahaffey”. It was a CMA (Christian Missionary Alliance) church camp in a little rural town near Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. Yes, this is where Phil the Groundhog resides. I’ve seen plenty of his cousins there, but never the prognosticator himself. In the years I attended in the summer, I didn’t always attend for the right reasons. My favorite part about this place was being with my friends, playing the volleyball and basketball tournaments, eating the cheap burgers at the snack shack, and waiting in an hour-long line every night for the famous milkshakes after the evening service.
During my teen years, my motives weren’t so innocent. I went to camp to get away and do things I should’ve never done. I allowed my feet to pursue a dark path. We were required to attend church services every day in the youth building called the Tabernacle. The camp leadership had entertaining speakers and music lined up every day but my heart was hard. I never really cared too much about what anyone had to say. I was living my life the way I wanted and I liked it.
However, there was one particular story I remember out of the dozens of sermons I heard. It was about a football injury that was career-ending. The man in this story had a brutal tackle one game that left his tibia bone protruding out of his skin. It was a compound fracture that ended his football career. Nothing that was ever spoken until that point moved me because I was selfish and I didn’t care. But for some reason, this story resonated deep within me. I couldn’t shake the visual.
Later that morning after the service I was ready to start the activities! My friends and I quickly made our way for lunch and then headed straight to the basketball and volleyball courts where the games were about to begin. We made our teams earlier in the week and were placed in our brackets. Game 1 was on! It was a fierce battle under the hot noonday sun. My opponent, who also happened to be my childhood friend, was considerably larger than me. I was 5’7′. he was well over 6′. He also had a considerable weight class over me. I maybe weighed 165 and he was roughly 230 pounds! The ball was on our court and became loose from a swat. I turned on the jets to keep the ball from going backcourt. My friend followed suit but took a giant tumble right onto the lower part of my left leg just as I reached for the ball.
Snap! That was the defining silence that was heard over the whole court. Then came the screams. I looked down in a daze to see what had just taken place and there was my bone pushing through my skin! The story I had heard at the early service was playing through my mind as the very incident of the football player just came to fruition. I heard someone call the ambulance and tell them, “We have a compound fracture.” I rolled and pounded the ground as a crowd now formed around me to see what was happening.
Then all of a sudden as I was trying to console myself while others were trying to settle me down, I got a glimpse of a man walking down from the edge of the woods just 200 feet above the court past the RV section of the camp. He was carrying a black medical bag. It was as if I saw him walking in slow motion. The moment he reached me, my situation drastically changed in an instant!
Stay tuned for part 2 next week!
