Chicken Soup for the Country Soul by Jack Canfield

Author:Jack Canfield
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
ISBN: 9780757397134
Publisher: HCI, The Life Issues Publisher
Published: 2010-09-03T04:00:00+00:00

“DECK OF CARDS”

Written by T. Texas Tyler.

Copyright ©1948 Songs of PolyGram International, Inc.

Trio Music Company, Inc., and Fort Knox Music, Inc.

Copyright Renewed.

Used By Permission. All Rights Reserved.

Promises Kept

Events that would forever change the lives of two young brothers started when John was twelve and Malcolm was eleven. At the time, they were visiting their grandmother’s farm in Goodlettsville, Tennessee. Though the boys were supposed to go to church that morning, they had decided to go crow hunting instead, so they stayed home with their aunt and uncle.

As the boys prepared to go hunting, they loaded the rifle, set it in a corner of the living room and filled their canteens. Because they weren’t allowed to go after crows ’til their aunt and uncle left for church, the boys got to feeling their oats and started roughhousing. Before long, Malcolm—who had forgotten that the gun was loaded— picked it up and began pointing it around the room. John shouted, “Don’t point that thing at me—it’s loaded!”

“No, it’s not,” Malcolm said as he squeezed the trigger.

But it was. The rifle went off and a bullet hit John in the side of the head, penetrating several inches into his brain. The saving grace was that he had on earmuffs fitted with a thin steel band that clamped the muffs to his head. That metal band split the. 22 cartridge into several pieces so the bullet didn’t go as deep as it would have if it had been whole. Yet the fragments crushed the entire side of John’s skull and went into the brain.

Seconds after the shot rang out, John hit the floor yelling, “You shot me!” He fell with his head next to the bed so all that could be seen was blood trickling onto the rug. Malcolm thought for sure that his brother was going to die. Their aunt heard the shot and came running. She knelt down, took a close look at John, got up and ran out into the yard, where her husband was fixing to go to church. They put John into their car and took him over to the funeral home for transfer to an ambulance. From the funeral home, the boys’ aunt and uncle went with the ambulance to the hospital. All this time, Malcolm was left alone at the house. That was the first time he had ever prayed in earnest.

“Dear Lord,” he said, “Let my brother live. Let him live, and I’ll become a preacher.” Up until that moment, he had never even thought of being a preacher!

On the way to the hospital, John began praying in earnest also. Over and over again, as he felt the blood oozing from his head, he said, “Dear Lord, let me live and I’ll become a doctor.”

When John got to St. Thomas Hospital, the brain surgeon told his parents, who had arrived by that time, that the damage was severe enough that, while the boy might live, he would probably be a vegetable—unable to walk, or talk, or do anything for himself for the rest of his life.

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