22 Years Ago Tonight

August 3, 2015

Some days are more memorable than others. It’s been 22 years – today – but the effects of August 3, 1993 are still powerful, for me.

I was in my second year as senior pastor at a large church with larger challenges. I was in my Sabbath month break – in the Colorado Rockies – with Cheri and our daughters, then 19 and 15. My plan: go to dinner in Fairplay – a historic mining town – about 45 minutes from our place, driving through scenic South Park. Our Ford Explorer – factory-equipped with Firestone tires – was just a year old, and the graded dirt road had a late-summer washboard surface. We were halfway there…

My memory stops about 15 minutes before the incident. Cheri recounts: we were going about 30, in a flat S-curve when the SUV went out of control. She thinks we rolled about six times before landing upright – roof flattened, windows all gone, car totaled – and the dust settled. She – and our daughters, in the back – were still strapped-in, with some minor abrasions. They found me about 75 feet away: seat-belt released, ejected that distance from the force and head-first into the dirt at the side of the road.

Some of the crazy details: I was unconscious, Cheri performed CPR to get me breathing again. The girls ran to call for help, at a ranch about a mile away. It was an hour before the off-duty, rural fireman arrived. Another hour passed before the Flight for Life helicopter arrived. Three hours after the incident, I was offloaded at a Denver hospital… and the odds weren’t good.

Massive concussion, with frontal-lobe brain injuries – the life-threatening issue. Prayer – across the country – was huge; God was gracious. Eight days in Intensive Care; released with this caution: “We don’t know if your mental edge or memory will return.” Out of the hospital, with orthopedic issues that were undetected by the neurologists who were my crisis team: fractured femur, fractured pelvis, fractured ribs, and two Grade-III shoulder separations. My family’s experience: four days of “will he live?” followed by weeks of, “how ‘recovered’ will he be?” Traumatic brain injury does its thing; the effects can remain long after people forget about the incident that caused it. I knew who I was before the accident; who would I be, after?

Three life-impacting lessons from that game-change experience are still with me, today; let me share them with you as my family remembers God’s graciousness to us on that August evening:

Our plans are often not His plan. We were on vacation, heading for dinner; I had just turned 40, and wasn’t yet at “halftime.” Discovery: life can change course – or, end – at any time, without warning or consent. Ready or not, you may be in the midst of the final act of your personal story… or, it may be just a chapter that is wrapping up, with another taking its place. Be ready…

Pain can be a liability, or an asset. Make it an asset. My memory starts-up again, about 10 days after the accident… and every waking moment since has been marked by chronic pain – in both shoulders. Pain speaks constantly; some activities make pain scream. “Thorn in the flesh;” I get that. Pain either preoccupies me… or I relegate it to the background of my consciousness, and engage something more important. I’ve learned that, through pain: focus – constantly – on something bigger…

Disconnect my identity from my entity. Leaders can become their enterprise… and lose themselves in their assignment. If I could not return to my assignment after the accident, was I finished? From my recovery months, a vision for the church became clear to me… which I set in motion when I regained my capacity. Back to Lesson #1 – our plans are often not His plan: I left the church position 24 months after I came back from the accident… but my vision for the church was accomplished without me – after I left to pursue another vision, which became The Master’s Program.

Thanks, God: I wasn’t finished on County Road 59, 22 years ago tonight…

Bob Shank