God often prepares us for a situation before we go through it. When we were stationed in England, my husband, Floyd, a tech sergeant in the United States Air Force, came home from work to tell me that the Air Force had required them to take a class on clearing obstructed airways (choking) in adults and children. (It was probably part of a CPR class.) At the dinner table that evening, he was telling me about it.
“I’m a jet engine mechanic. Can you believe we had to take that silly class? It has nothing to do with my job. And then, when the instructor discussed clearing an obstruction from a child, he wants you to hit the kid so hard I think the blow would do some serious damage, if it didn’t kill him. Especially if it’s a small child.”
We had scarcely changed topics when our toddler started choking on a piece of hotdog. Floyd patted him on the back; nothing happened, so he hit our son between the shoulder blades just a little bit harder.
As long as someone is coughing, they are still breathing and not in serious trouble. But when they no longer cough or make any sounds, their airway is completely blocked.
Toby was no longer coughing or gasping for breath; he was turning blue. Floyd snatched him out of the high chair, turned him upside down, and with the heel of his hand, he hit that child with all his might right between the shoulder blades. That hot dog shot out of his mouth like a missile. Drawing in a sharp breath, Toby started to cry.
Floyd looked at me and said, “Now I know why he said to hit really hard. I might have hurt him by hitting him, but if I hadn’t hit him hard, he would have died in my arms.”
Our son was okay. God took Floyd through that class the day we needed the information to save the life of our toddler. Today, our son is married, with three little girls of his own, and he’s serving the United States Army in Korea.
We almost lost him at birth. At fifteen months, he nearly choked to death. When he was twelve, a car backing out of a driveway ran into him and knocked him off his bicycle. He fell under the car, and the driver nearly ran over top of him. A year later, he almost drowned in a motel swimming pool in Tennessee; his sister saved him. Deployed to Iraq, he was driving a Bradley tank when he ran over a roadside bomb. It blew the tracks right off the tank, but no one inside was injured.
Everyone has an appointment with death (Hebrews 9:27). One day, Toby will face that appointment and God will call him home. In the meantime, God has work for him to do. That’s why he’s still here.