Ouch and Thanksgiving!

I had a very poignant but physically painful experience last night.  I had just walked into the bathroom in our master bedroom when I noticed that the empty mouthwash bottle that I had haphazardly tossed into the waste basket earlier in the day had missed its mark and was lying on the floor.  So, without much thought I bent over, grabbed it and tossed it into the container.  Then I stood up… or attempted to as I forgot about the magazine rack that I had so cleverly attached to the wall right above where I was rapidly ascending to… Yep!  You got it!  Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

I got the metal edge of the rack right in the top of my head… and boy did that hurt!  And the hurt only got worse as the initial shock wore off.  When I turned away from the corner that I was facing and toward the sink, I went down on my knees while I found myself laughing and crying out in pain at the same time!  Crying out in pain because it REALLY hurt and my head was throbbing.  Laughing because my very first thought was two fold…

First, I immediately pictured Piper bursting out in laughter and yelling out from the bedroom, like she almost always did when I’d come in the house bleeding from some minor cut or scrape that I’d inflicted upon myself while working on some project, saying “Jim, you gotta stop hurting yourself!”  And secondly, because I knew without a shadow of a doubt that she would rush into the bathroom to check on me as she verbally rebuked the devil and spoke healing scriptures over me… while calming me down with her delicate touch.

That’s where poignant moment came in.  I sorely missed that interaction with her!  Piper always seemed to be nearby whenever I needed her.  But it wasn’t all without a little bit of caring from another… As soon as I hit the floor, the dog jumped off the bed and made a beeline for me!  When the pain finally began to subside, I looked up and met Fiver’s wet nose as he was standing close to me with his nose on the floor next to where I was holding my head! 

He never made a noise but the look in his eyes said it all!  It was nice to know that I did have someone around who was looking out for me… although I am not sure how he would have handled making the 911 call if it had been necessary!  (Which it wasn’t… and although I’ve got a slight headache this morning, there isn’t even as much as a bump on my head! PTL!)

I thought about Piper’s almost always immediate reaction of speaking out the Word of God to come against the negative situations that arose in our lives, as I was reading from 2 Timothy 4:7 during my Bible Study time earlier today.  At the time of this writing, the Apostle Paul knew he was nearing the end of his life and comforted his young protégé Timothy by telling him, “I have made a good fight, I have come to the end of my journey, I have kept the faith.” (BBE)

As I read those words, I couldn’t help but think of them as being spoken by my lovely wife to me!  She most definitely fought a good fight and could confidently declare as the final moments of her life passed by, that she had done an exceptional job at keeping the faith throughout the entire journey of her life.  Those thoughts also reminded me of a testimony that I had been listening to last night just before the whole bathroom bump incident occurred.

The preacher was recounting a time when he awoke one morning on a day he was scheduled to speak on the subject of Biblical healing at a large church… with the flu.  He recalled that he was so sick that his wife had to shave him in bed and then help him to get dressed.  Like Piper (or I should say, Piper like him, as we have been supporting and learning from this man’s ministry since the early 1980’s), he immediately began speaking out God’s Word on healing and was determined to prove God’s Word correct and speak at the church!

Well, to make an interesting and humorous story shorter, with the help of friends, he made it to the church and up to the pulpit.   He then received his healing as he began to speak on the very subject that he was personally dealing with.  He stated that he spoke for an hour and ten minutes and was totally healed and physically free from all the symptoms that had set themselves upon him when he walked off the platform!

Someone later asked him about his stand of faith and in particular, “What if you died?”  And without missing a beat, he boldly declared “then I would have stepped right into heaven totally healed and whole, yelling out the healing scriptures that I had been confessing!

His personal experience made me realize that with all the Word that we had been pumping into Piper over the last ten plus years, that I am POSITIVE that when her time came and she stepped boldly through the veil that separates our realm from that of heaven, that she walked forth with great strength and joy and without missing a beat… immediately joined in with the glorious choirs of heaven sounding “like the noise of raging water and the noise of loud thunder. The sound I heard was like the music played by harpists.  They were singing a new song in front of the throne, the four living creatures, and the leaders…” Revelation 14:2-3 (God’s Word ©)

And yes… I was also reminded of the vision that the Lord had given me on multiple occasions over the last few years of her stepping through the doorway of heaven wearing her signature blue jeans, plaid, long sleeve cotton shirt and white running shoes… with a big smile on her face, a hop in her step and a gleam in her pretty brown eyes!  And… I betcha that is exactly how it happened!

2 Corinthians 4:16 tells us that “Though outwardly we are wearing out, inwardly we are renewed day by day.”  I firmly believe that another reason why the Lord told me early on to continually pump the Word into Piper, was precisely because of what this verse implies.  While her outward form may have been deteriorating, her inside self, her spirit, the REAL Piper was growing stronger and stronger because of all that Word.  And then when the time came… the REAL, strong Piper on the inside emerged!

Wow!  Makes me want to keep pumping all that Word into… ME!  Wouldn’t you?

All these thoughts give me many things to be thankful for on this Thanksgiving holiday!  I may be temporarily separated from my best friend in the whole world, but I can be thankful for all the right things we did in obedience to God’s directions and the truth of His Word, while I rejoice at Piper’s newfound peace and joy in heaven!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends, and as you do, say with me… "I am expecting to be THANKFUL for all that Jesus has done for me… as well as what I can and have done for and with Him!”