When my Papaw E.O. was young, his father once told him that he would have to hire another farm hand just to keep an eye on him.
If you have read any of my articles or storytelling books, you know my Papaw E.O. was very accident-prone. Yes, I’ll admit it, I am that way too. But I think most of his came from the fact that he was easily distracted.
You see, Papaw loved to look around regardless of what he was doing. Usually his interest was caught by a vehicle, farm equipment, cows, or any combination of the three. When that happened, he would sometimes forget to look back at what he was doing.
So every time Papaw went out by himself on his tractor or in his truck, we became concerned. Often we would find excuses to go out into the field and check on him.
A few years before he passed, he had an accident that caused him to walk with a cane and it kept him from driving on the road. Unfortunately, it didn’t stop him from driving around his farm.
My mother would stop by my grandparents’ house on her way home from work to check on them. This one evening, Mamaw told her Papaw had been out in the truck for a while.
Concerned, Mom hopped back into her car and drove down the road. Soon she saw Papaw limping up the road with his cane. When she got to him, he was shaking and visibly upset.
He told her his truck went into a ditch out in the field next to the creek. He couldn’t get his truck out of it and had been walking a good distance. With his cane, that couldn’t have been an easy task.
Mom said, “Daddy, you weren’t walking alone. The Lord was with you.”
That was obvious, but we didn’t realize how miraculous it was until the next day.
When my uncle reached Papaw’s truck, he was rather dumbfounded. The truck was sitting in the ditch almost straight up and down with the back wheels up in the air.
Here’s the strange part. The driver’s side door was a few feet up from the bottom of the ditch. To have gotten out of the truck, Papaw would have had to jump out into the ditch and then climbed out.
When asked how he did all of that, Papaw didn’t know. He didn’t remember anything but walking across the field. Needless to say, that was the last time he ever drove anything.
In case you’re wondering how it happened, Papaw was distracted as he watched his cows and forgot to watch for ditches. Bull Run Creek ran through Papaw’s farm. After a heavy rain, new ditches would form and grow deeper.
You know, we take for granted how often God keeps us from harm.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou are with me; they rod and thy staff they comfort me.” Psalm 23:4 (KJV)