Chapter 76 Prayer and, Be Careful What You Pray For - from my book Changes

Chapter 76

Prayer and, Be Careful What You Pray For

My dad taught me many years ago, and Tom Brown Jr. repeated this teaching in class, that since we are in the physical world, we get to choose what happens in the physical world.  But the cool thing is, we are existing in that most privileged state of still being connected to the force and spirit and can request help from those other realms.  We are not limited to the physical world.

Prayer in one way to communicate with the unseen and eternal.

The spirit world is waiting and watching; willing to help us but waits for us to ask.

Tom also taught that when we pray, after we make a request, we ought to say, “I ask for this or something even better.”  This gives us feeble, shortsighted humans a back door clause; we turn over any final outcomes and answers to The Great Mystery / God, and accept whatever the answer is, trusting it will be better than what we can imagine, even if it means we do not get what we think we want.

There is formal prayer and there is casual talking to the unseen and eternal.  Tom called God The Great Mystery.  I like to call God Heavenly Father, and sometimes The Great Everything.

As a teenager and beyond, I relied on God to be my confidant.  I could talk to God, who would understand me completely and listen without complaint.  I never felt alone when I remembered that presence and comfort.  It was the times I neglected to connect with God that I felt alone.  Now, thanks to the things I have learned through Trackerschool and meditation, I understand an even greater connection because of the connection I feel with everything around me.

I learned a great lesson, though, about being careful what I pray for.

It was many years ago, in 2001, before I ever heard of Trackerschool.  I was in debt $40,000 with credit cards.  My ex-husband was behind hundreds of thousands of dollars in child support payments and I wanted him to get caught up so I could pay off my bills.

Wanting to be out of debt, being taught it was good to be out of debt, and having been taught that if I prayed for something that was a righteous desire, I would receive what I asked for.  Consequently, I felt that being out of debt was a righteous desire.  I had not yet learned about that back door clause of leaving it up to God.  So I prayed for the money to pay off my credit cards.

Not only did I pray for $40,000 so I could get out of debt, I prayed that I would get the money within a year.  I remember thinking, during the prayer, ‘Yeah, I’ll set a time limit on this.’  Looking back I think how crazy it was to give God a deadline!

When I ended the prayer, I felt an energy go out from me.  I had a feeling of surety that my prayer would be granted.

Then I forgot about it.

About 9 months later I had a dream that I was twirling through the air surrounded by beings of light.  When I woke up I felt so full of love and beautiful white light that I started praying a prayer of gratitude for the wonderful dream.  As I was praying, and enjoying the feeling, I was told to pray for protection.  I was told to pray for the protection of the millennium for myself and my family that day.

I was shocked that I was told to pray for the blessings of the millennium, I didn’t know that was a thing I could do.  But who was I to question what I was being told while in prayer, so I did as I was instructed and prayed as directed.

Then I got up and went on about my day.

I was planning to do some canning and needed some things from the hardware store, so I got into my car to go to Ace Hardware.  I had three of my children with me, Marshal 10, Jessica 5, and Juliana 1 year old.

As I drove down the rural road toward town, I saw a car coming towards me - swerving wildly back and forth across both lanes of the two lane road.  Juliana was in her car seat and had thrown her bottle of milk on the floor of the car.  Marshal and Jessica had unbuckled their seat belts to retrieve the bottle for her.

The car coming toward us seemed like a crazy cartoon car with the way it was swerving so speedily across the road and back, and I yelled to the kids, “Buckle up!  Hurry!  There’s a crazy driver coming!”

Instead of buckling up, Marshal and Jessica leaned forward to see the crazy driver and yelled excitedly, “Where?”

I saw the driver was not going to stay in his lane so I took my foot off the gas and drove onto the grassy shoulder, on the right side of the road, where there was a wide, shallow ditch by a walled neighborhood.

At that point, everything happened very quickly.  The oncoming car (an older style, big, heavy, boat of a car) did not avoid hitting me, but rammed into the drivers side door of my van, scraping along the drivers side of the car, and continued moving forward until it stopped a little ways up the road.

My car, a brand new Chrysler, Town and Country mini van, went flipping, over and over, in a spiral.  My van was rolling over and over as we crossed over the ditch, still moving forward.  We tumbled up the other side a bit, then came tumbling back down, finally resting upside down in the shallow, grassy, ditch.

During the time the car was flipping, I started yelling.  It must have been a natural reaction to the trauma.  But, what was odd to me was, as we were flipping, I had a couple thoughts cross my mind.  One thought was, “Hey! We’re supposed to be protected!” And the other thought was, “Wow, these seat belts are holding me perfectly straight, how is this possible?”

When the car finally settled to a stop Marshal said, “Mom, stop yelling!”

I didn’t even realize I was yelling, but I stopped.

Then I was crying.  I asked Marshal if he was all right.

He said he was.  I found out later that he had been knocked out momentarily and woke up laying half way out the open sliding side door of the van.

Juliana, in her upside down car seat was crying.  I told Marshal to take her out of her carseat and take her to the sidewalk by the ditch.  I was later told she ought to have been taken to the hospital while still in the car seat, in case she was injured, which makes sense.

Jessica seemed to be OK.  She went with Marshal and Juliana to the sidewalk.

I was upside down in the drivers seat, being held up by my seat belt.  My left side hurt.  Being hit from the left side, my body received impact from the arm rest on the door.  I couldn’t turn my head.  Also, I couldn’t move my left arm, which was hanging limply, so I thought it was broken.

There were several men who came on the scene and were trying to help me.  They had been in a car following the crazy driver.  I found out later the driver that hit our car was drunk and an illegal immigrant.  I thought it was odd that he was that drunk at 10 o'clock in the morning.  I was told later that he was deported after the accident.

I picked up my phone which was still in the cell phone holder built into the van, but I couldn’t think of how to call my husband.  My mind was not working well.  I gave my phone to one of the men who had come to help and they called my husband for me.

Between those men and I, we were getting ready to have me unbuckle my seatbelt so they could pull me out of the car through the open window.  Fortunately, a woman came up to help.  She told us stop; to not take me out.  She said to wait for the emergency vehicle to come and to let the EMT’s get me out.  She was an emergency room nurse on her way to work and had seen the accident happen.  She asked me about my injuries and began assessing me.  I could not turn my head, my back and side hurt, and I could not move my arm.  She stayed with me until the emergency people came.

Once the ambulance got there, and they came up to the van, one of them said, as he reached in and turned the key, “Well, first, let’s turn off your car.”

I laughed.  I thought it was funny that it was still running!

Then they assessed my injuries again and used the jaws of life to open my drivers side door.  Together, many hands came in to support my body and pull me out without changing the position of my body.  They did a perfect job because I had no pain when they lifted me out.

Together, they carefully laid me on a stretcher.

The overcast sky was misting rain, which is sort of unusual for Florida.  It felt cool and refreshing.

They asked if they could cut my pants off me and I said yes.

Then they covered me with a lightweight blanket.

I asked if I could bend my knees so my back would be more comfortable and they let me.

They asked me my name.

I answered.

They asked me how many children I had.

I said, “I have eight children (This was before my youngest child was born).”

They talked quietly amongst themselves a bit and asked me again, “How many children do you have?”

I repeated myself, “I have eight children.”  I wanted them to know I was important because I had a lot of responsibility and needed to be very well taken care of so I could get back to all my kids.

Seeing only three children on the sidewalk (that had been in the car with me) they finally asked, “How many children do you have with you?”

“Oh,” I said, “I have three children with me.”

That satisfied them.  They told me the ambulances would be taking my children to the hospital and I would be airlifted out.

“OK,” I said.

It was about that time that my husband arrived on the scene.  He had to walk a ways because the street was blocked off.  The ambulance guys had given him my purse and he put it around his neck.  He bent over, smiled at me, and asked, “How you doing Shelly?”

I laughed.

He typically acts a little goofy when someone is injured.  I think to lighten the mood.

He told me later that there were a lot of people from the neighborhood standing around watching.

He followed the ambulances to the hospital in his car.

On the helicopter ride, I smiled and said, “Wow, I get to ride a helicopter, but I don’t even get to look out the window!”

The emergency guy in the helicopter gave me a weird look, like he wondered why I was joking around.

Then I asked him to hold my knees.  They were bent as I laid on my back and the movement of the helicopter made it difficult for me to hold them still without pain.

He looked at me funny and I let him know that it hurt my back to have to hold my bent knees still, so he obliged me.

We were met at the emergency room entrance by the nurse who had been at the accident.  The hospital knew I was coming and was ready to receive me.

They rushed me in and did an x-ray of my back.

While waiting for the x-ray they asked me about my arm.

“I think it’s broken,” I said.

“Why do you think it’s broken,” they asked.

“Because I can’t move it,” I said.

“Try to move it,” they said.

I tried and I could move it just fine.  I guess my arm was just in shock or something, and refused to move earlier.

They put a catheter in me so I wouldn’t have to get up to urinate.

My husband was there trying to cheer me up.  While I laid there, he was getting water in the straw and holding it up, about a foot over my mouth, and telling me to open up.  Then he would let the water out.  What a goofball.  I was grumpy at first but then I relaxed and let him entertain me.

When they got the results of the x-ray they weren’t satisfied so they sent me to get an MRI.

The MRI showed I had the transverse processes of L1, L2, and L3 broken off on the left side of the body.  Also a rib fracture.  The MRI did not show any damage to the spinal cord.

They said there was nothing they could do about those three little bones that had broken off; they would just float there or be reabsorbed by the body.  They didn’t even mention the fractured rib, which I later saw written on their report.

Since there was nothing they could do for me, they sent  me home!

It bothered me that they would send me home with a broken back!  I wanted to know if they were going to give me a brace or anything.

They said no, I’d be better off without one.

They took out my catheter and I worried how I would be able to pee since it hurt to try to get up.

They sat me up and put me in a wheelchair.  I was not in much pain laying down, but I was in a lot of pain sitting up.

My husband brought the car around and the nurse wheeled me out to meet him.  I told him to tip the seat back to I could lay back in the car  When they moved me from the wheelchair to the car, between the pain and the smell of exhaust, I almost threw up.

Once we got home I had to get from the car into the house.  With my husband on one side of me and one of my grown children on the other side of me, they walked me to the house.  The pain was excruciating and I almost threw up again (and/or passed out I think).

During the next two weeks, the Relief Society at my church organized and had someone come over every single day to help with my children and the housework.  They also brought in meals for those two weeks.

Those two weeks became one of the most beautiful times in my life.  Being cared for like that, by the loving women of my church, was a gift of love that I will never forget.

After a couple weeks, I was able to resume most of my duties and I felt pretty good.

I had just found out I was pregnant before the accident, but I think the shock of the injuries may be why I ended up with a blighted ovum and I miscarried a couple months later.

That upset me more than I expected.

After the first two weeks of recovery, I was assigned to a specialist who would be in charge of my further recovery and physical therapy.  When I made my appointment to see that doctor, there was a problem finding the images of my MRI.  They were not in the hospital files.  It turned out they were still up on the light box for the doctors to see.  I learned they could hardly believe my spinal cord was not damaged.

The insurance paid for everything at the hospital for the children and I.

Marshal, aside from being temporarily knocked out, had scrapes on his forehead and a cracked collarbone, Juliana, the baby in the car seat, had a tiny scratch on her cheek and nose, and Jessica had a pinpoint bruise on her arm.  That was it.

When the nurses asked Jessica if she was buckled up during the accident, she said, “No.”

When they asked her if she was going to buckle up from now on, she said, “No.”

When they asked her why not, she said, “I didn’t get hurt,  but my mom was buckled up and she got hurt.”

It was difficult for the nurses to argue with her logic.

Once all the expenses were paid for, and the insurance gave us the maximum allowed, we ended up with almost exactly $40,000, free and clear.

That is when it dawned on me … my prayer had been answered; just not the way I would have expected or wanted.

I wanted my ex husband to catch up on some of the child support he owed me.  That’s not what happened.

Considering all the different parts that came into play, including getting our new car at $8,000 below sticker price three months earlier, and receiving $6,000 profit from the accident due to the car being totaled, plus all the other things: medically, the timing of the crash, and everything involved that came together at just the right time, I have to believe there was a lot going on behind the scenes in the unseen and eternal world to orchestrate that prayer being answered.

What a silly human I am.  I had the audacity to give God a time limit!

On my last appointment with the doctor assigned to my follow up appointments and the physical therapy I went to, just before I left his office, he looked up from his paperwork at me, over his reading glasses and said, “I hope you know, young lady, God protected you.”  Then he emphasized, “People just don’t walk after accidents like that.”

I said, “Yeah … I think I know that.”

So, in God’s infinite wisdom, I was taught a lesson, just harsh enough to get me what I asked for, and gentle enough to allow me to recover fully.  I am glad I followed the instructions to pray for protection that morning.  Who knows how the day would have turned out otherwise.