She checked on her six-year-old son, Joshua, who was
driving a little motorized car on the other side of the yard. He was enthralled
with all things mechanical, and probably knew more about the tractor than she
did. "Stay over there, Joshua," she called to him. "I'm going to cut the grass
on this side."
Up and over and into the seat before she had time to
reconsider. The wheels on the tractor were up to her nose, and the cutting blade
was seven feet long.. She wouldn't think about any of that. Plenty of country
women drove tractors. She turned on the ignition, and the engine sprang to life.
One pass along the outside of the grass, turn, and
then another pass. Susan was doing just fine. Joshua had approached once,
yelling that she wasn't cutting the grass just right, but she had waved him
away. Now he was back on the safe side of the lawn. Or was he? Suddenly Susan
realized that Josh was not where she'd thought he was. Frantically she looked
around. There he was, riding up alongside of her! "Josh, get away!" Susan
stepped on the brakes.
"Mom, you're not cutting it right!" She heard him
shout. Then Josh attempted to jump onto the tractor. In a horrified moment, she
saw him slide beneath the tractor, and felt the huge wheel go over him. "Josh!"
She screamed, cutting the engine. Her husband came running from the front yard.
"He's under the tractor! I've killed him!" Susan screamed, as she ran for the
phone in the house.
The shock of the unbelievable scene stayed with her as
she babbled to the paramedics. Why hadn't she been more careful? What damage had
the blade done to him? God, God. She couldn't think of any formal prayer, but
her heart seemed ready to burst.
Since the Archies lived so far into the country, the
paramedics told Susan they would meet her and Josh at a country store several
miles away, rather than waste precious time looking for the house. Susan ran
back to the accident scene. Her husband had somehow gotten Josh out from under
the tractor wheel, and he was lying on the ground. Stunned, she realized the
six-year-old was conscious, and there was no sign that he had been cut by the
blade. "I'm okay, Daddy, it doesn't hurt," Josh was protesting.
"Lie still, Josh, and don't talk," the adults told him
as they carefully carried him to the truck. He couldn't be okay, Susan thought.
She had felt the huge wheel go over him. His lungs must be crushed, and as for
internal injuries..she didn't want to think. She had phoned her mother to alert
her church's prayer chain, and she knew word was going out over the hills and
hamlets. There was power in prayer. But could it save her son's life?
The truck sped down the country road. Before they even
reached the store, Susan saw the Lifeflight helicopter fly over them, and set
down in the parking lot. As they turned in, the paramedics were waiting, and in
minutes they had Josh ready to be airlifted. Susan watched the plane take off,
asking angels to circle it. As she and her husband pulled out of the parking lot
to drive to the hospital, Susan noticed that the lot was almost full.
People..people she knew, and those she had never seen before, all alerted to
Josh's condition, she realized. They had come to the store to offer silent
support, just to let her know they were praying. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
God, God..
Joshua spent three days in the hospital while
physicians checked every inch of him. They discovered that his liver had almost
been cut in two, his lungs were bruised and two ribs cracked. It was almost
unbelievable that he did not have more serious injuries, but these were
troublesome enough. And yet Joshua seemed to have no pain. "I want to go home,
Mom," he kept telling Susan. "I feel fine, honest."
"He seemed completely normal," Susan says. "After the
first night, he actually roamed the halls, looking for something to do." The
liver mended without surgery. All in all, doctors felt he had been a lucky
little boy.
Susan knew it was far more than luck. From the moment
she had asked for prayers, they had come. People met her at the hospital,
dropped off notes at her house, wrote letters from faraway places, people from
all faiths, all assuring her that they were praying for Josh's healing. And one
evening Josh confirmed it. "God was with me," he told his mother. "He was under
the wheel, right with me."
God, and a host of angels, shielding him from injury.
Susan gives thanks every day.
Copyrighted 2003 by Joan Wester Anderson. For more
stories of God's love, check the website at:
www.joanwanderson.com.
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