So, the Gypsy Train rolled into Indy for the Penrod Arts Fair 2011, looking for big sales and happy times.  We were so excited to be a participating artist of “Indiana’s Nicest Day”, the self-claimed tag for the one day show on the grounds of the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

Everything was as advertised.  350 artists, multiple music stages, wine stands, gourmet cooking (teaching) chefs, children’s area…heck, even Bud Light taps sprouting from walls of strategically parked trucks.  With the cost of admission at $17, a ‘buying crowd’ was practically guaranteed.

Sold some paintings early in the day and thought we are on our way.

Then the call came.  Frantic.  Desperate.

I don’t know who to call.  He broke his neck.  I don’t know what else to do, where to go… can you pray for us. Yes, of course. 

The  cell call came from a loving Mom (and dear friend of ours).   As we stood in the back of booth Yellow #75, she was floating in a speed-boat on a lake in Tennessee.  Water skiing fun gone terribly wrong.  Her 22-year old son in a freak tangle, had fallen.  Neck snapped.  Face down and unable to move, a Friend in the water rolled him over to save drowning.

The terror in her gut and the look on her son’s face tell Mom …he’s dead…but then she, Dad, Wife, & Friends go into action.

Get him to the rear deck.  Pull him onto my lap.  Call 911.  Put the wake board under his legs dangling off the back.  Flag down that passing boat.  Screaming, waving hands…Please Stop!

The boat pulls along side.  Just happens to be carrying a Nurse.  Her first time on the lake, ever.  She’d swam in it, but never boated.  Today, she boated.  And was cruising by a broken neck within minutes of occurrence.

Take charge.  Stabilize.  Hold neck.  Angel Nurse.

Finally back to the marina. EMS coming.  20 minutes seem like 20 years.

While they wait come the words that would double over the father.

“Dad, can you pray for me…”

EMS arrives.  Can’t do anything here. Call Life Flight from Vanderbilt Medical Center.  15 minutes later the chopper arrives.  Their son, one of the brightest lights and love of their life, just disappears into the western horizon, while they stand and watch.

We left Indy early Sunday and arrived at Vandy minutes before surgery prep.  Prayer chains had been activated all over the country, with resounding, fervent pleas for healing and restoration.

3:33 pm surgery begins.  Fused the 2nd and 3rd vertebrate with bone graft taken from his hip.  Halo head stabilizer screwed on.  Ventilator.  Intubator.  IV’s.  Stuff attached everywhere.

The prognosis comes an hour later…expect a full recovery, with about 15% restricted movement in his neck area.  Not out of woods, but looking good.  Universal Hallelujahs.

Later, one from the Doctor’s team announced…“this is the luckiest man in Nashville.”  

From that same trauma room on floor 10, at least 4 more people would die in the next 48 hours while ‘lucky man’ (translation blessed, for all of us) took baby steps toward immediate healing and a life-long testimony.  His triumph over a near-tragic death came on the same day a nation remembered the tragedy ten years ago on 9/11.

I witnessed a loving, faithful family pull together in amazing fashion.  Made possible by having a foundation.  A source of power and strength; a basis for operating in times such as this.

For the rest of us?  It is not if, but when, we will experience Valleys, hard, out-of-the-blue personal losses and challenges.  That’s life in this world.

Question is… what will lift you up from them?  How will you and your family persevere?

Good looks?  Your great job?  Number of Facebook friends?  Quantity of paintings sold?  Your bank account?  New SUV?

Try taking all of those to the Intensive Care Unit on floor 10.

This family put it all on the Lord’s shoulders.

And not just for a couple of horrible days and nights around a son’s broken neck.  It is a free choice and one they made long before this event.  With it they are promised peace, favor, blessing, mercy, grace, power, in ALL things; even if their son had passed on to heaven that day, it is the strong name of Jesus that would’ve carried the family on.  Thankfully, it is the same name that will now get them through long and painful days of rehab, fraught with discouragement, tears, and frustration.

This isn’t ‘a preach’…it IS to share what I saw work in action this weekend.  And it works like this in countless lives every day.  It is truth.

Some other time I may do an Artist’s review of the Penrod Art Festival…for now, this just mattered a whole lot more.