On Dec. 7, 2016, my husband Tom and I were splitting firewood. We filled our tractor bucket with large pieces of logs to lift them off the ground. Tom then loaded each piece onto the horizontal beam of the log splitter. My job was to remove the pieces that fall away from the wedge onto the table. Then Tom would engage the ram of the splitter, which forces the log into the splitting wedge and splits the log in two; Tom then resplits the two halves.

The splitter has 10,000 pounds of force to do its job. Once a piece of wood is placed on the beam and being split, one must stay completely out of the way. The wood and the splitter show no mercy.

The wood was leaving mud and debris on the beam, so I was using the broken head of a push broom to sweep the beam clean. While I was sweeping behind a log that Tom had placed, he pulled the lever and the ram began to push the log onto the cutting wedge.

Suddenly, the engaged ram pushed against the broom head, which twisted in my grasp. The outside edge of my index finger on my left hand was soundly pinched against the back of the log. I had a glove on and only felt a painful numbness. I soon realized, however, that my glove was getting wet from bleeding. The force of the ram shoving my finger against the log had split open my finger about an inch. I showed Tom, and we hurried home to patch it up.

Once inside the house, I washed around the gash and pushed it back together. Tom wrapped it with gauze and tape. I prepared to go the hospital for stitches.

But Tom went and got Herbert W. Armstrong’s Autobiography and read to me from page 304 about Mr. Armstrong’s first personal healing. Mr. Armstrong had been splitting wood with an ax, when the ax slipped and struck his left thumb in midair. He had to pull the sharpened ax out of the bone. It had quite a deep gash. He had prayed instantly, asking God to prevent pain and to heal it over rapidly, as he ran into the house to bandage it. He was healed with only a tiny scar.

Immediately, we called Mr. Greg Nice for an anointed cloth, and we prayed.

Since I am left-handed, this was a challenging time. Taking notes at services with the left hand was difficult, so the right hand was used with interesting results. It reminded me of 1 Corinthians 12:26, “And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it.”

When we checked the wound, we discovered that the gauze we had first used to wrap it had become embedded in the scab. Tom assured me it would be alright and would come off with the dried scab. He cut off the loose material in order to rewrap it. We applied an antiseptic solution to prevent infection of the dead tissue and rewrapped it.

On January 15, the day of fasting and the 39th day of this time of testing, the scab fell off by itself and revealed a healed finger. This truly was a lesson in faith and trusting in the sacrifice of Christ to heal. I’m thankful for Mr. Armstrong’s example and how it inspired me to trust God for healing, just as he did in a similar circumstance.