Disability Archives - Page 2 of 2 - call me pasturescott

The Tale Of The Backyard Hawk

^{My Father yielded yet another spectacular backyard blessing just yesterday.}

^{By now most of you know I’m a disabled wheelchair user. Some of you also know I’ve gotten into this photography thing (since May) with near-reckless abandon. I cite the numerous times I’ve gotten stuck in mud and loam attempting the perfect shot as Exhibit A.}

^{As such, I often pray for God to send me specific birds to capture in my lens since I cannot always get to where they are in their natural habitat. Alas, my backyard is a veritable panorama of birds and small wildlife!}

^{I’ve asked for redbirds and He’s brought them. I’ve asked for goldfinches and He’s wrangled some up. Hummers, we now have aplenty. Oftentimes, these aviary eye candy have shown up a day after, within the same week, and some even the the very day of my asking.}

^{God is good.}

^{I believe I know why too. The Creator knows how deeply His flitting and flapping playthings draw me more deeply into worship and He mercifully obliges.}

^{Which has taught me something about prayer: He doesn’t necessarily oblige Himself to deliver on every ask we lay before Him, but is more inclined to answer affirmatively when He knows how the askance will foment our worship of Him, result in thankfulness, and increase our awe of His Kingdom.}

^{Case in point.}

^{Just yesterday, there I was in my Holy Spot, digital Bible in hand and prayer book close by, sniffing delightfully at the pre-Fall air, listening to the warbles, whistles, cantankeries, clicks, and rattles of the menagerie caught in my yard when I felt it welling up in me. I was to ask.}

^{Here’s where you’ll think I’ve come unbuttoned.}

^{Pools of water filled my orbital cisterns. Emotions rose. My heart hopped on a treadmill. My breaths quickened. Something so strong came over me, prompting me to cast doe-eyes at my Papa. I’m not kidding when I tell you my emotional investment in this ask was as profound as the many times I’ve asked for various healings or financial need.}

^{You’ll think it’s stupid.}

^{Well, I’ve brought you this far, may as well take you the rest of the way. Okay, I asked God to give me a close-up glimpse of a hawk. Sandy and I have lived at this address for 22 years and in all that time I’ve only caught sight of one hawk in our backyard – and that was more than five years ago, closer to ten. This is what makes my story more pauseworthy and, dare I say it, miraculous.}

In less than two hours a hawk glided into our backyard, it’s body like a quiet missile to my left. It thudded clumsily onto a branch barely 25 feet from me and the branch sank a good six inches.

Well, hullo there.

^{It was majestic!}

^{I cried out, letting loose my inner child on Christmas morning, slowly fumbling for my camera.}

^{Please God, don’t let him fly away!}

^{Lo and behold, he clung to that branch for a full five minutes, his only movement a slide along the branch so as to – I kid you not! – move clear from some distractful foliage. An unobstructed view. I literally ping-ponged between excitement and fear. My Cooper’s Hawk affected me in a way we might project wondrous joy and abject terror in the Presence of the Almighty at the same time.}

^{Praise and worship erupted in the atmosphere. All birds had absconded, not wanting to be its next meal, but I served as the Sons of Korah Choir all by myself in that ethereal moment.}

^{Some might chide coincidence, but you’ll never convince me. In a very limited sense, I felt like Elijah by the waterbrook, birds sent to feed and be his companions. In those minutes I was fed from the Table of God, a Mephibosheth at the Royal Dinner.}

^{Yes, my Alaskan friends, I know a hawk doesn’t come close to eliciting the majesty of a giant bald eagle, but I’m still enraptured.}

^{God said:}

^{Sure, My son; I’ll flush out a hawk for you! A big one, a terrifying one. Just for you, because you asked. I see that it will move you to worship Me, be glad in Me and increase your awe in Me.”}

^{As for the giant bald eagle?}

^{Oh I’m coming for you, just you wait. I’ll be getting my ask on pretty soon. When the Father prompts me, it’s a done deal.}

^{When it happens, I might even be moved to jump out of my chair.}

^{Won’t that blow y’all’s minds?}

This is my story, this is my psalm…

Thirty-one October 2nd’s have now gone by since the accident that put me in a wheelchair. I cringe whenever I reference it as an “accident” as it was anything but. However, human nature being what it is, we like to classify things in terms we can wrap our heads around. To say my fall from a cliff while 17 other people stood as witnesses was happenstance is a miscarriage of truth. The truth is, God – Jehovah-shammah – was there.

And He was actively involved.

He didn’t enter the scene in the aftermath, like an EMT, but was overseeing and overruling the event as it unfolded. Try and wrap your head around that, why doncha?

Did He, then, shove me off the precipice?

Or did He stand aside and let it happen?

I know how we quantify His ways often by saying God “allows” things but doesn’t cause such things. I’ve said it often myself – and on most levels I believe in His permissive will. But we say it like it’s almost a passive will, that He looks at the evil that comes against us and says, “I wish I could stop you but my hands are tied.”

Okay, okay, yes He chooses to tie His hands as He did when His Son was being tortured and brutalized. That’s not my point. I somehow (somehow?) believe that evil set its design upon me 31 Octobers ago and asked for a warrant from the Judge of the Highest Court to tamper with me. The Almighty said, “Proceed” but did something far greater than step aside and let it happen.

He was there.

I said God was actively involved and I believe this is how: Isaiah the prophet encouraged the people of God with the promise,

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. – Isaiah 43:2-3

He told them the LORD would “uphold them with His right hand” (41:10) and I, personally, have been struck by the words I have long since felt the psalmist wrote just for me:

The steps of a man are established by the LORD, when he delights in his way; though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the LORD upholds his hand. – Psalm 37:23-24

When the Almighty granted permission for my, shall we say, incident, I believe He added the caveat: “devil, you cannot kill him, cause any brain injury or completely sever his spinal cord. You may make My child a paraplegic, but no worse!”

I then believe God dispatched His angel-ministers to make certain His legislations were carried out.

If you interviewed many of the eighteen college friends that were gathered at Fort Bluff in Dayton, Tennessee that night, more than a few would probably say that over all, prior to my headlong jettison from that bluff (a height of barely 20 feet, thank the Lord), the night was memorable for all the right reasons: the mild temps, sunset over the Pocket Wilderness, the perfectly cooked steaks, the meaningful conversation, etc.

And yet…and yet…

Nothing anyone could up to that point put their finger on, but something felt…well…cockeyed.

What we couldn’t see in those hours between arrival, setting up camp, cooking and eating and cleanup, then the ambulance carting me away, was the open hostility in the heavenlies, where angels and demons stood their ground, the enemy determined to kill me and the heavenly beings determined to not let him.

God was anything but passive. Far from giving the devils free reign and making me open game, He was present and presiding and, as my body tumbled over the edge of that old rugged bluff, He did for me what He didn’t (by choice) do for His only begotten Son – intervene. Aren’t you deliriously joyful that there will never, ever be another son or daughter of God’s for which He will never intervene ever again? That He will always be present in our sufferings and afflictions?

They found me waking from unconsciousness with my head perched on a stone, however, the only mark on my head was a gash above my left eye where a scar still remains. My head wasn’t split open, my brain wasn’t damaged. I wasn’t a quadriplegic. My spinal cord wasn’t severed (although the enemy did everything to it just short of). And I wasn’t dead.

Thirty-one October 2nd’s later and I’m very much alive, with a quality and purpose of life I delight in, the Father is glorified in, and the devil despises (which is just fine with me). To His grace and glory, I’ve never come close to cursing God and taking my life. Every day I awaken I’m acutely aware of something I never much paid attention to those 21 years I lived on healthy legs: the strong Hand of God – His right Hand, He says – holding me up, carrying me when I require it, and hastening me on for another go. Every day, every season, every mile…until I am perfect – just like the One who made me.

“THOUGH HE FALL,
(I) SHALL NOT BE CAST HEADLONG
FOR THE LORD UPHOLDS (MY) HAND.”

Either Way…I Still Praise Him.

You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.
(David, Psalm 139:5)

We are distressed/hard-pressed/troubled/squeezed on every side…
(Paul, 2 Corinthians 4:8)

Nobody puts ‘Baby’ in a corner.
(Johnny Castle, Dirty Dancing)

I’m feeling ‘hemmed in’ these days. Diminished. Limited. Grounded, like a teenager: no keys, no car, no friends. Just school, then home.

On top of that, I feel cornered. Outnumbered.

It’s redolent of a scene in Thor where the Viking hero and his compatriots infiltrate the Frost Giant’s lair and are met by a relentless enemy in wave after wave, each giant becoming more formidable than the last and more numerous than before.

Yeah, that captures it nicely.

On every front a vexing battle is being waged and it seems like I am losing ground.

Ministry.

Family.

Finances.

Friends.

Health.

Some fronts are more like skirmishes while others border on “Shock and Awe.” These days I look like the Arizona border, Iraq (in March, 2003) and Afghanistan all rolled into one. Continue reading Either Way…I Still Praise Him.

“THOUGH HE FALL, (I) SHALL NOT BE CAST HEADLONG FOR THE LORD UPHOLDS (MY) HAND.”

“THOUGH HE FALL,
(I) SHALL NOT BE CAST HEADLONG
FOR THE LORD UPHOLDS (MY) HAND.”