Unexpected Grace
The Stories of Our Lives
Car trip to Humility, UK
When the car hit me from behind, I didn't know what was going to happen.
I saw it approaching in my rear view mirror and I think I winced; it all seems so long ago now.
There was a great deal of noise and rushing around and eventually I managed to get myself to hospital, all I could think was `I'm aching all over'.
A young doctor told me I was lucky to be alive and said they were concerned about my spine.
The next five years were a blur of different drugs, different doctors and different treatments, everything from physiotherapy to acupuncture; I felt like a pincushion I had so many needles stuck in me.
I talked to everyone, doctors, nurses, and specialists, everyone that is except God.
I had known God since a child, but in adolescence I had left the path. I hadn't even noticed, so presumed later that it was all part of growing up. May be it was?
All I know is that God wanted to talk to me and I wasn't listening.
The pain in my spine was immense; sometimes I would feel like blacking out
Other times I would have to spend the day in bed or crawling around on all fours.
Children laughed at me because I had to wear a collar and use a walking stick
And my self-pity reached levels too high for even professional climbers to scale.
Then something happened, I'm not sure if I had enough, or God did. Perhaps it was both of us, but suddenly I realised `this isn't getting any better, it's not improving'.
So I did it, and this is what I did.
I started talking to God, I would spend my lunch times in a church quietly.
It wasn't even my denomination, it didn't matter, God still listened.
I stopped taking all the drugs the doctors gave me, the painkillers and anti-inflammatories. Some people might call it going `cold turkey', these days I consider it going `warm Christian'.
I went to see a cranial sacral osteopath who I had been told was a good man,
And most important of all I put my trust in something greater than myself.
It is now eight years since I had the car accident and my relationship with God grows daily,
I put my trust in Him, my navigator, my compass and my companion.
I still have days when my spine hurts…. but my soul dances.
God doesn't always give you what you want, but you get what you need.
I didn't want a car accident, but it brought me back to God so I smile.
Amen.
About the author
Phillip Hodgson is a psychotherapist, men's worker, writer and poet living in Malvern and London, UK. He co-founded the counselling and psychotherapy network, Transpersonal Emergence, for people searching for greater meaning than just planetary existence. His poetry has also been published by UNESCO and the Cygnus Review. See Phil's poetry on this site.
