Dangerous Prayers

Again, outdated, but it's news...

October 20, 2008

Today I didn't work at all because I have been switched to the night/evening shift until the end of October. So the way that it works is like this: One day completely off, the next day from 3pm - 9pm, then the next day 9pm - 8am. And you just cycle through that schedule. The nice thing is that i get about 2 days off each week, and there are two other nurses working with me.

So, today I was off. This afternoon Stefan decided to go riding, and I thought I would go for a ride on the other horse on my own. Ansley helped me catch Pepper, but he was being really stubborn and kind of feisty. His attitude made both of us a little nervous, so I decided not to ride. Besides, I kind of had a bad feeling about going, but I couldn't explain why. A little later, Sarah came and asked me if I wanted her to help me catch and saddle Pepper so that I could ride. So I changed my mind and decided to go.

Just as we were saddling him, Stefan came back on Bob. Unfortunately, Bob had little motivation to go fast, and Stefan didn't get much of a ride. So Stefan decided to go out riding with me. We started off at a nice slow walk. Then we got the horses to go a little faster. Sadly, when we got to one stretch of road there were a lot of kids, and Pepper gets very skittish around kids. I guess the kids here think that it's fun to scare the horses, so Pepper does not like children. Oh, I forgot one thing. Just before we had gotten to the kids, Pepper was running to catch up to Bob, and a tree branch (the end of a tree branch) rammed straight into my eye because I didn't have time to duck. At that point, I called up to Stefan and said, "I think we're going to have to go back now." I told him what happened and that I was seeing spots in my left eye. But then it started getting better, and I could see alright despite my eye hurting a lot.

So I said that we could keep going. As we got to where the kids were, Pepper started getting nervous. Stefan told me to go ahead a little way to the crossroad and wait for him there while he tried to chase the kids away. When I got to the crossroad, Pepper decided that he didn't want to wait, and he bolted. I tried to get him to stop or slow down, but he was flying. I've never in my life gone that fast on any horse. I started to get really scared when I realized that he wasn't going to slow down. Also, this was my first time riding with an English saddle, so my balance wasn't very good.

I began to pray because I just knew that I was going to fall off. Sure enough, I flew off the left side, landed on my lower back, and rolled. Sometime when I fell, I also managed to hit my head and left arm/shoulder. As I laid there, I wondered if I should try to get up or not, but thought to myself, "No, Stefan will come soon, and he'll know what to do," which was kind of a silly though because Stefan is not really medically minded, and I'm the nurse. Then I realized that I wasn't sure if I could move my left leg even if I wanted to. This brought a new fear that it might be paralyzed, which was actually kind of silly to think because I could still feel it.

Finally, I saw Stefan coming on Bob, and when he got to me, he asked if I was alright. I told him I wasn't sure if I could move, but I would try. So he gave me a hand up, and I discovered my ability to move, which was exciting, yet painful. We walked ever so slowly back to the hospital, which was luckily not far away, though I don't remember much of the walk except for a lot of pain. Once at the hospital, I explained a little of what happened to Ansley and some others. Then I went to take a shower and see what injuries I had. Thankfully, it could have been much worse. I took inventory and found that I had a scrape above my left eye, a swollen and bruised left eye, scrape on my lower back, very swollen lower back, and sore legs. All very minor, non-threatening injuries, praise God.

I walked slowly home for dinner after my shower. While I was walking home, I started to get really nauseated and felt like I might pass out. I told Berthe and the girls what happened. Then I laid down on my bed to wait for food. It was at this point that I began to cry, and I told God that I didn't want to be here. As I laid in bed, I began to try to go through what had happened, but some parts were fuzzy, and I couldn't remember. So then I began to worry that I might have a concussion, but I didn't think I had hit my head that hard, and I didn't think that I had lost consciousness. And, another odd thing, from the time I fell to the time I got home, it all felt like deja vu. I felt like I had dreamed all that happened before, every detail.

Anyway, here comes the cool part of the story. As I laid in bed crying and thinking I didn't want to be here, I thought, "No. Wait. This is just another of Satan's schemes to discourage me." And then I remembered my worship and my prayer from this morning. This morning I had been thinking about the fact that I don't praise God enough, and especially when situations are bad. I felt like I had been complaining a lot and I don't always have the most positive attitude. So this morning, I sang some praise hymns, read some Psalms of praise, and prayed that God would teach me to be like Paul- praising God in every situation.

Once I remembered my worship, I began to sing the Doxology hymn and prayed. I decided that I would have a good attitude and not complain. And once I started singing and praying, I actually began to feel joyful and at peace; it was really amazing to feel God working so clearly. Beyond that, I realized another blessing in all of this. When I was eating my dinner a little later, I noticed that my back hurt a lot less if I was sitting up straight. Since the beginning of this past summer, I've been trying to work on having better posture. So as I sat up very straight and ate my dinner, I thought, "wow, now that it hurts to slouch, maybe I'll make even more progress with my posture." As soon as I thought this, I laughed and thanked God.

Looking back, I've thought of some other blessings and things to be thankful for. First of all, I didn't break any bones, and I wasn't paralyzed- both huge blessings. Second, I feel reassured in my theory that God didn't bring me to the middle of Africa to die (I'll have to write later about my theory of fearlessness). It was also a blessing that this happened on my day off, and I don't have to work until tomorrow afternoon. Finally, I realized that it was really good that I didn't go out riding by myself the first time because had I gone alone, things could have been much worse. So, be careful what you pray for; prayers can be a dangerous thing ;)

Praise God from whom all blessings flow; Praise Him all creatures here below; Praise Him above, ye heavenly host; Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.