God Got My Attention: Tia Weaver
August 20, 2008
God is great, but sometimes life ain’t good … but sometimes it is.
A year ago I found myself in the hospital ICU ward, undergoing not one surgery, but two—the first one to save my life, the second to save my left arm and hand. They both worked. Praise the Lord! Apparently it was touch and go for a while. In fact, one of my best friends told me she was trying to figure out what she’d say at my funeral. She told me that, not to be morbid, but to make me realize how close I came.
People tell me that if they couldn’t see my scars, they would never know I was ever injured. That’s God’s doing, no one else’s! I had doctors just shaking their heads in wonder. I should have had two or three more surgeries on my arm to make it function correctly—they only had to do one.
I was riding an ATV with a friend. It got dark, and we went right into a sinkhole ten feet deep with the ATV landing on top of me. I broke my neck, sheared off my elbow, crushed my left hand, broke my wrist in two places, broke two ribs, and crushed my spleen and left lung. I almost lost my diaphragm. The ATV pedal went through my left ankle, leaving entrance and exit wounds but not severing my tendon and not breaking my bone. I broke my pelvis on the left side in two places and had a few head injuries, too.
That was a year ago. I remember thinking I was on the path God had carved out for me, but I was attempting to take it real slow. Once I woke up in the hospital, I remember thinking to myself, OK, Jesus, what can I do for you here? I thought He must want me here to speak to someone about Him; otherwise I would have never been there. One night I woke up about three in the morning with a gentleman who heads up respiratory preparing a nebulizer treatment for me. I just came out and started asking him questions about where he went to church and told him he should come visit our church. It turned out he and his family were looking for a church home, somewhere where they just wouldn’t be a number. I said, “You have to try All Saints” and proceeded to give him the address. I’ve often wondered if he ever visited our church. Then recently when I was cleaning my desk, I found his name and address and wrote him a letter and dropped it off into the mailbox that afternoon. The following Sunday, guess who was there? Yep, it was he and his beautiful family. (That is one of my mottos, you know: clean and ye shall find.) I couldn’t believe he had remembered who I was, let alone come to our church!
Before my accident, I used to think it wasn’t my place to ask someone where they went to church or if they went to church. It wasn’t my business. Now I know it is my business.
I have been blessed with riding, training, and teaching again. In fact, I have been voted on to a board for the Burn Research and Recovery Foundation. I am the horse expert on the board and have the opportunity to become an equine therapy specialist. I will be helping burned, Downs, and autistic children learn to be empathetic via horses. It sounds like a little thing but could change their whole future.
I feel like I am in fast forward motion when it comes to the Word of God. I want to drink in the Word of God and just can’t get enough. I won’t give poor Father Chip a night off of teaching the Word. I won’t give the choir a break. In fact, we’re learning some very difficult motets during our break time. Like our own Father Chip has said, a prayer sung is a prayer said twice. What could be more important than that?
I’ll never be able to thank all my friends who helped me recover so quickly. Steve and Debbie McCullough, Hannah Sherbourne, Chrys Parker, Osei Okolo and family, Nancy Clark, Susan and Bill McLaughlin, Christian Silliker, The Pleake family, Father Chip and Christie, Father Ed, and Cecyl Dolgner … to name a few. Thanks to the people who sent me beautiful flowers, wonderful cards, and great phone calls. May God bless all of you for all you did for me.
I guess God wanted to get my attention … He did get it in a big way!
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GOD IS GOOD ,GOD IS LOVE,& HE IS GREAT!!! THIS IS A GREAT MIRACLE & TESTIMONY STORY!!! IAM GLAD YOU POSTED THIS TESTIMONY ONLINE FOR THOUSANDS & THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE TO SEE HOW GOOD OUR GOD IS…EVEN WHEN WE SAY IT’S OVER IT’S NOT OVER UNTIL GOD SAYS IT’S OVER…(AMEN & PRAISE GOD)…