My heart was pounding. Three days had passed since Daniel had been injured, and I was about to see him for the first time at Walter Reed. Daniel’s brother, Patton, prayed with me before we entered surgical ICU together.
Machines filled the room, with tubes going in and out of Daniel’s body. He had just been checked out by his doctors at Walter Reed, and since they had not re-bandaged him yet, I was able to get a good look at the magnitude of his injuries. They had opened up his belly; it was just wide open. I had never seen anything like it.
Okay, all right, this is where we start, I thought. This is where we are, what we’re going to move forward from.
I had a job to do: to support my husband and be the leader of the family while he recovered. I had to rise now because he needed me. I wasn’t going to look back on it with regret, I was going to do the best I could. So that’s where we started.
And it was a long road ahead. In Korea, he spent all his free time working out and trained his men to push themselves beyond their physical limits, too. Some of the guys thought he was crazy, but when Daniel was hit, everyone could see how being in good shape really helped his body. He had additional muscle and more blood.
The body ate up his muscle to get energy. He went from being really strong and muscular to being so thin he couldn’t even keep a ring on his finger. His cheeks were concave, his eyes almost looked too big for his face. We had shaved his head to be able to keep it clean easier, and the resulting appearance reminded me of pictures I had seen of prisoners in Auschwitz.
He was unbelievably thin and weak. For the first time since I had known him, he was helpless, but I knew he was going to make it. And in the meantime, I braced myself for what would be required of me calling on prayer and God’s strength to be my support.
Lord, use my weaknesses to prove your strength and receive the glory.
“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’” (2 Corinthians 12:9a)