One sunny afternoon in the backyard of our country home, I was standing barefoot in the grass, soaking up the sun and feeling the cool breeze, watching my brother, Isaiah, climbing the old crabapple tree. "Ean! Look at me!" he yelled, starting to swing from a branch about six feet up. A moment later, a loud crack brought the branch down on top of my seven-year-old brother as he fell to the ground. I ran to my father, who was making a cobbler, and told him what had happened. He dropped his half-peeled peach, ran to Isaiah, and carried him inside. As he set Isaiah (still crying) on the couch, he asked what happened. Isaiah's back was hurting, and he had a significant cut in his leg where the branch had fallen on it.
Upon hearing the commotion, my mommy came from the attic and helped my daddy finish dressing the wound on Isaiah's leg. My parents decided they wanted a doctor's opinion, so my daddy took Isaiah to the emergency room. The doctor determined his back was okay but improved the initial bandage by stapling his owie to keep it together.
I am grateful Isaiah is alive. In the moment when the branch toppled my brother, I felt scared, but I think God protected him from a more serious injury: a cracked rib, a broken back, a punctured organ, head trauma, loss of consciousness, or death.
Call to Remembrance
God is mighty, loving, and kind; He is looking out for us!
“He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, but those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint” (Isaiah 40:29-31).
All scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
