“I Had Myself a Wound Concealed”
By Steve and Claudia Goodman
Sometimes we are most grateful for blessings when we are in the deepest pain. When it seems that we can’t go on and it hurts too much to think about our own predicament, strangely enough, there is a very powerful remedy. We learned about it firsthand following the car accident that killed three of our children and left my husband Steve and two others critically injured.
Reaching out when it hurts most
The day after the accident there was a terrible windstorm. It blew lots of branches off the trees and broke our front window. A few days later our son Mark was gathering up the branches. He kept remembering how he and David and Peter used to carve walking sticks from them, and as the day wore on, he missed his brothers more and more.
That night I came home from the hospital where Andrea and Aimee were recovering to check on Steve and the children before I headed back. I noticed how despondent Mark seemed. I knew I couldn’t stay to help him, but I was concerned. I asked him if he would go back to the hospital with me, but he refused. I finally persuaded him, and he reluctantly got in the car.
He cried all the way to the hospital. I felt completely helpless. I knew how he felt, but what could I say or do? I’d never been through this before either, and I didn’t know any better than he did. I prayed to myself as we drove along, the silence punctuated with his sobs, mingled with my own. Finally I began to speak, and I think I learned more from my words than he did.
I said, “There will always be a hole where David and Peter were. No one will ever be able to fill it, and you wouldn’t want them to.” I told him it was all right to cry; it was good for him. Then I reminded him what Dad does whenever he feels down. He goes out and finds someone to help, and he always comes home happy. Somehow neither one of us felt like helping anyone, but I couldn’t think of anything else to suggest.
We finally reached the hospital a half-hour later and walked up to the rehab unit. Mark read a story to Aimee and played a game with Andrea. By the time we left, he was laughing with them. We had both learned a lesson we would call on again and again: When you are hurting the most, get outside of yourself and help someone else. Keep going. Look to the future. You can always find someone to help, and when you do, you forget your own sorrow.
Focusing outside yourself
Last summer I returned home from a trip to find our house sparkling clean – and I knew I hadn’t left it that way! I discovered that one of our friends had brought her children over to help her clean it for my birthday. The thing that touched me most was that she is a single parent with seven young children and no child support. She didn’t have a minute to stop and clean someone else’s house. She could hardly keep up with her own. Yet, she took time to bless my life because she loved me – she who needed someone to clean her house so much more. It was a great benefit to me, but perhaps the greater blessing went to her and her children, as they forgot their own challenges and lost themselves in serving someone else.
“He who loses his life shall find it”
Several years ago our family contracted hepatitis A while on vacation, and we ended up with three of our children in a hospital at Kansas City. I had to fly home to Denver to care for three other children who we had left at home and who also had hepatitis. As the days wore on and the children were finally released from the hospital in Kansas City, I realized that Steve was too sick to drive them home. I yearned to drive out and bring them back myself. I knew they really needed to be home. But I was far too weak to drive. I could hardly stand up, and I felt so helpless. I also knew those in Kansas City were too ill to sit in a car for twelve hours straight, even if I could manage to find a ride for them.
I tried to check bus fares, but going by bus proved to be out of the question. I didn’t know what to do. Things looked so hopeless. Just then the phone rang. It was a couple in our ward who were only casual church friends. They offered to drive me in their motor home to Kansas City to pick up my husband and children. They had exactly enough beds in it for all of us. They told me could be ready to leave in a half-hour! How did they know how much I needed them at that moment?
All through the night they drove while I slept in a comfortable bed. They picked up our family and headed straight back with us. They spelled each other off, and the husband arranged to take that day off work in order to have enough time to drive us home.
Tears welled up in my eyes as I thought of the sacrifice they had made for us – mere acquaintances in the ward. There was no call for them to do that much for us. As I tried to thank them, they explained that this act of service had been a great blessing to them. They had a wayward son whom they worried about day and night. This trip had given them time to put life in perspective and focus on something else for a while.
“Peace bound up my broken heart.”
In times of challenge or sorrow, my favorite verse of “A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief” comes gently to my mind.
“Stript, wounded, beaten nigh to death,
I found him by the highway side.
I roused his pulse, brought back his breath,
Revived his spirit, and supplied
Wine, oil, refreshment – he was healed.
I had myself a wound concealed,
But from that hour forgot the smart,
And peace bound up my broken heart.”
When life gets the toughest, reaching out to bless someone else can help lesson our own suffering. While on the cross the Savior was still aware of others, as He asked John to care for His mother and forgave the Roman soldiers. As we take time to focus on others and minister to their needs, we will find that our own grief and pain become more bearable. “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” (Matt. 25:40) And when we are on the Lord’s errand, He gently touches our lives and brings that peace which binds up our broken hearts.
