The dirt clod

One of my most vivid memories from childhood took place when we lived in France.  I was over at the home of my friend, Nancy Polk.   I must have been about 8 or 9, and we were playing outside in a large dirt pile near her house.  There was quite a battle going on, as I recall, with boys throwing dirt clods like snowballs.  Nancy and I were forming the damp dirt into balls so they could be thrown.   I raised my head to see how the battle was going, and a dirt clod with a rock in it hit me square on the forehead.   I don’t remember any pain, but I do recall warm fluid on my hands when I lowered my head.  Time for me to go inside.

The next little bit of time is blurry to me, but I guess my mother was either at the Polks’ house or came quickly, because my next memory is sitting beside my mom in the car as we drove to the base dispensary, about a 20-25 minute drive from where we lived.  I remember holding a towel to my forehead.  And I remember like it was yesterday, over and over my mom saying to me, “What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee.  Psalm 56:3”      It was like memorizing a Bible verse right when you needed it.

At the “hospital,” I was flat on my back on a table while over my face, a green towel was placed.  A hole in the towel exposed the inch long cut at the top of my forehead.  “What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee.”  I remember sharp needle stabs as the local anesthetic went in.  “What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee.”  I remember trying to be still as the doctor put 6 stitches in my upper forehead.  “What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee.”

As the years have gone by, the memory of that day has stayed with me, which to an 8 year old was probably the biggest crisis of my life.  But it became one of the early anchors of my faith.  My mom taught me in real time what faith means.  I can’t ask her anymore, but I am sure she had known fear, and someone had told her what to do with that fear.  And she told me.  A day that could be remembered only as terrifying to an 8 year old, instead is remembered as one of the first times I exercised my young faith.

Years later, I would wonder if Mom repeated the verse to find a foothold for her own faith that day, because she was scared, or did was she speaking to my fear?  Or was it both?