After being inside most of the winter, our family was eager for spring to arrive so we could start enjoying some sun and warmer temperatures outside our home. Usually when the weather is nice, we try and take advantage of the time by doing little projects outside, but this day we had stopped to enjoy the nice weather from our front porch. We pulled some chairs up and began enjoying some time together as a family. Our youngest son, who is two years old, was happy to drag out his toys from the basement and bring them out one by one to where we were sitting so he could have some fun too!
On one of his last trips to the basement, he had went inside the door and as I said something to him, he stopped and started to come back out. At that point, we heard him scream in pain and we jumped up to see what it was. I opened the door and as soon as I did, it released his finger from the inside of our heavy storm door. The mechanism that keeps the weight of the door from slamming had broken about a month before, and we discovered that the door had slammed completely shut with our son’s little finger inside the jam. I quickly grabbed him and looked and saw where the door had sliced his finger all the way down. It was bleeding quite a lot, so I brought him to my wife as I went to go get something to cover it. As I was walking to the kitchen, something told me to pray for him. I guess in the excitement of things and being so concerned about stopping the bleeding, I didn’t.
About 15 minutes went by and we continued to comfort him. My wife held him and she said a quick prayer as he continued to cry. Our older son, who is 12, was there and he was also trying to calm his little brother down but could not do it. We finally sat him down and were able to determine that he needed to go to the hospital or immediate care for an x-ray and possibly some stitches. Something again told me to pray for him and for whatever reason, I thought to myself that my wife already prayed and that he would be fine. We tried to touch his hand very lightly, but each time he just screamed in pain and his hand had started to tremble and shake from the pain. We could see that the cut was very deep, and in my mind I was thinking that his finger was close to being cut off completely, or that he had broken his finger at the very least. He is our third child so we have grown somewhat used to determining when an accident like this needs more care than we could give. This was one of those times.
We then made the decision to take him to the immediate care physician or the hospital and everyone was rushing to get ready to take him. He continued to cry and walked over to me for consolation. I grabbed him and asked if he would like daddy to pray for him, and he said yes. He put his head on my chest and I prayed that the Lord would take the pain away and heal his finger, and in my heart I was acknowledging that God was the only one that could heal it and stop the pain. We then said, Amen.
He was still crying the second I put him down, but less than one minute later when we walked outside to take him to the doctor, he stopped crying completely. He then looked up at us and had a half-way smile and said, “Daddy, I want to throw the baseball.” My older son and my wife looked at one another, then they both looked at me and I looked at them. We all had the same expression like, “What just happened?”
I then asked him if his finger hurt and he said, “No, Daddy prayed. Can I throw the baseball now?” So I handed him a baseball and he threw it to me as if nothing had ever happened. I tossed the ball to him several more times to prove he was fine, and he acted as if nothing ever happened. I was in tears, praising the Lord, as it was truly a testimony of the instant healing power of the Lord!
He never cried or complained another time about it. Though it has been over a month and a half, you can still see the spot on his finger that is almost completely healed up now. Every time I see it, it has served as a reminder for me not to ignore that still small Voice that spoke to my heart.
Two separate times I heard it and failed to act on it, but He made sure the third time I heard Him and followed through. Praise be to the Lord Jesus!
A blessed brother in Christ!