By Derek Martin
“To me, the Christmas season has meant the joyful anticipation of something great to come.”
This past year or two has been a challenging season for everyone to say the least. I personally have had many very painful personal situations during this time and I empathize greatly with the many that have walked similar paths. The culmination of those challenges was particularly painful… quite literally. I was in a serious car accident. When it happened, I knew almost immediately what had happened and it was very similar to car wrecks you see in movies – the POV camera is blurry, there was a high-pitch squealing, and smoke everywhere. I felt like I had been hit in the chest with a wrecking ball.
I didn’t know how serious the chest pain was but it felt like there was some damage to my ribs and under my ribs. I remember praying to the Lord that if this was the end, if something was wrong with my heart or something else, I was ok with Him taking me - which was a very strange part of the whole ordeal as I remember it. The reality, though tough, was that I wasn’t as bad off as I felt at the time. I ended up coming out of the car wreck with a broken sternum, a cracked 3 rd rib on my left side and a partially collapsed lung on the top of my left side as well. The other person involved in the wreck hurt their hip but had no major damage and for that I am very grateful.
The miracle came next. I ended up receiving more prayers via Facebook, email, phone calls, texts and the like than anyone could possibly imagine… and they surely worked. I went onto the hospital in the ICU unit on Friday evening, by that Sunday morning I was being driven home. The collapsed lung had healed itself by that Thursday and I was given a clean bill of health. The trauma doctor said that most people who had this kind of accident would still be in the hospital on Thursday and here I had been home for 4 days already and my collapsed lung was totally better - a miracle in and of itself. By the following Monday (a little over a week from the accident) I was back at work, and was back to about 95% a little under a month after the whole ordeal - another miracle.
One of the most poignant things that struck me during it all was when Jennifer (my wife) went to see the car at the wrecking yard. The entire front, driver-side where I was sitting was gone almost entirely. It had been pushed into the passenger side. She was very choked up upon seeing how bad the wreck had actually been. As Jennifer was removing personal items from the car, she noticed something. I had a cross necklace, which was made out of nails bound together, hanging from the rearview mirror. Upon all this destruction was the cross, sitting there in front of where I had been sitting and it was untouched still, just hanging in the spot it had always been.
The cross was the reminder that through all of the trouble we encounter in our lives, Jesus is right there in front of us, protecting us, protecting others, and helping us in every way even when we might not see Him there. The cross was the reminder that I was taken care of long before the accident ever happened and that He will take care of me always.
To me, the Christmas season has meant the joyful anticipation of something great to come. Throughout all the pain we have each endured during the past 2 years, let Christmas serve as a reminder that Jesus has something great coming for us, that He is the healer, and that He is with us always.