Gordon MacDonald's Fall into Grace

Three weeks ago I did something stupid. I fell on ice and ruptured the ligament that connects the kneecap to the thigh. The moment I hit the ground I knew my right leg was inoperative. My first thought was, I guess I won’t be running tomorrow.

Dragging my useless leg, I crawled to the back door of our home and finally got the attention of my wife, Gail. With her assistance I managed to get inside and to a chair where we could assess the damage. Some guests were soon to arrive at our home, and since I wasn’t in serious pain, we decided to go through with our evening plans. Later, after everyone had gone, we drove to the emergency room and learned that I’d need surgery to reattach the ligament.

The next morning the surgeon confirmed the judgment of the ER people and told me what my future might look like.

“Your daily running is over, perhaps forever,” he said. He spoke of a few months of physical therapy, relative inactivity, and pain. It was a dreadful mix of information. Only later would I realize that he purposely offered a worst-case scenario so that I wouldn’t be cavalier about my injury.

Three days later the surgeon cut my knee open and repaired the damage caused by my fall.

Now, at this writing, I am three weeks into the post-surgical period. The doctor likes what he sees and appears to have backed away from his gloomy predictions. He told me that I could (with prudence) resume a few of my activities. A few days later I flew to South Carolina to speak to a group of Southern Baptists who received me with southern sympathy and affection. One woman called me a sweet (yes: sweet!). Yankee. Confession: I loved it.

In these 21 days, I have learned these things:

About cheer and receiving it. The number of letters and cards, the flowers, the phone calls has been overwhelming. I have come to value the power of encouragement as it is mediated through words of appreciation, assurances of prayer, quotes and Bible verses, and the various ways people remind you that you’re special to them. Cheer is a medicine, which when pressed into people, offers a courage that cannot be calculated. I have often tried to give cheer; but this time I have been the recipient. And the experience has deeply influenced me.
About human goodness. I have yet to meet anyone in the medical community who did not do an outstanding job of making me feel important, listened to, cared for, and confident of healing. From the man who first met us at the door of the emergency room to the X-ray technician, from the person obtained a blood sample to the nurse who made me put on a ridiculous-looking surgical gown, from the surgeon and the anesthesiologist to the person who wheeled me out of the hospital for the ride home, I have been treated like royalty. I feel constrained to write this because we are too often flooded with stories of the harshness and depersonalization of systems like the medical world. But I have nothing but positive stories about the good people found in the world of healing.
About kindness. To travel to South Carolina this week meant a ride from my home to Logan Airport in Boston (driven by a friend). Then a slow walk (on crutches, carrying a knapsack) to the ticket counter, through security, to the gate. Throughout this process, any number of people offered to carry my bag, find me a wheelchair, get me a newspaper. Airline personnel provided me with special assistance out to the plane, and in Charleston, the pilot himself grabbed my knapsack and escorted me off the plane to a waiting wheelchair. All this done not for someone who was, in any way, a celebrity but merely one more no-name traveler with a leg in a cast. Cynics will say that the airlines were simply trying to prevent an accident and a lawsuit. But I know better. There is a compelling beauty in human beings when they choose to be kind, and you smell it. A mystery of human connection fills the air, and one travels on a cloud of blessing.
About marriage. I have known for a long time that I married a champion. But in an experience like this, where one becomes unusually dependent on others, beginning with a spouse, I am reminded of the value of a relationship that has been growing for 47 years. Now there is extra time for talking, reading to one another, prayer, and looking after each other’s needs more carefully. And on more than a few times I have mused upon how absolutely honored I am to be loved by another human being. Sometimes it takes an injury to sharpen one’s appreciation of these things.
About faith. The Biblical person walks in a tradition in which it is believed that “our steps are ordered by the Lord.” So what does that really mean? That God causes slips on the ice to slow us down, to quiet us for a while, to discipline us? I don’t know. But I am constrained to believe that whether he is directly the causation or not, God means for something to be learned. So what is it this time? Perhaps it is too early to tell. But at this writing, I can tell you that if the experiences described in preceding paragraphs are all there is to be learned, it’s been worth it.
About life’s bizarre twists and turns. You do the same mindless thing 10,000 times with no consequence. The next time something freaky happens that captioners your life. We never know how close we are to circumstances that change everything. It is not pessimism to demand of oneself a readiness for the unexpected. When contemplating my surgery, I asked God what kind of a man I should be in this messy period of convalescence. I heard heaven offer these “bullets”:
- Don’t complain
- Accept offerings of service graciously
- Ooze with thankfulness
- Listen for things you would not have heard under other circumstances.
Each day I’m trying to do these things.
About helplessness. Not many years ago an injury like mine would have been a permanent one, and I would have been effectively disabled for life. I read of healings in the Gospels with a fresh eye these days. I think with disturbance of places in this world where people sustain injuries like mine but have none of the medical remedies that are available to me. I am newly sensitive to those who will never escape a wheelchair or crutches. I’m mindful of those who, unlike me, have no loved ones, no friends, no cheerleaders to walk through this stuff; people who are alone and without resources.

What I have experienced is hardly qualified to be called suffering. But there’s been enough sensation in these past weeks to make me more alert to those in my little world who are hurting a lot worse than I am.

Gordon MacDonald is editor at large of Leadership journal and lives with this wife, Gail, in Canterbury, New Hampshire.

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