How One Bad Thing Became One Amazing Testimony

I am diabetic and have had issues with circulation and infections in my feet. To date, I have had three toes amputated for infections. In addition, I have had a few additional procedures, like snipping tendons to prevent toes from bending as I have hammertoes, all in attempts to prevent sores and wounds from becoming infected and then losing more body parts. If I am truthful, I am not happy about this but I have learned to become content with it and still remain strong in my faith. One of the reasons is because is at least one case I can see how God used the loss of a toe to save the main part of my foot. Allow me to step back to last year for a moment to help show you what I mean.

June 2019, I had gotten a blister from my brand new diabetic shoes with special customer inserts. You might be thinking, “Aren’t diabetic shoes supposed to prevent that from happening?” The answer is in an ideal world, absolutely. Unfortunately, we do not live in that ideal world and on top of that I am not a normal sized person. So having to get fourteen wide sneakers present a whole set of problems to begin with. Then add that my toes seem to be sensitive and slight deviations in the measurements and/or the shoe, and you wind up like I was last year with a blister. At first, it looked like it was going to clear up. Then some time towards the end of July it began to take a nasty turn. I attempted to reach my doctor but he was on vacation. In the past when he was on vacation, his nurses would forward all messages and he would text what to do (like make an appointment or see one of his colleagues or go to the emergency room). This particular case, they did not forward the message. My messages fell on deaf voicemails and my toe slowly got worse. Eventually, and at the request of my wife, I went to the emergency room. They immediately diagnosed that the toe had to go and assigned me the podiatrist on call. Since my regular doctor was on vacation (and he didn’t service that hospital anyway), I found myself with a new doctor. Following the amputation, the insurance required me to choose between my old doctor and my new doctor. Given my new doctor had greater availability and was both humble and bold with his faith in Jesus, I selected to stay with my new doctor.

Fast forward to the beginning of October. On Wednesday October 7th, I suddenly came down with a massive headache and fever. My doctor thought it was covid but it was not. Thursday morning, my which had a blister that had been deep under the skin opened up and drained. Friday morning, the toe was discharging stuff–bad stuff. We went to the emergency room. By the time we got to the hospital the toe was twice its size. The ER doctor told me that the toe was a goner. I didn’t believe that. I believed that God wanted to save my toe. Saturday spent the day going from chills to sweating. My foot doctor called me to explain that he had been praying and felt that the toe was not the problem but a screw that had been inserted some six years prior to help my toe heal was the culprit. I agreed that the toe was going to stay and we both agreed to remove the screw and see where we at. I prayed. And then I prayed again. I knew my doctor was praying. Even some of the nurses were praying for me. Monday October 12th at 7:30 in the morning, I had the surgery. Following the operation, the fever broke. My levels returned to normal. I was discharged from the hospital and my toe has been doing nothing but healing at a fast rate. And I am thankful.

The other day, I was praying and worshipping and thinking about this entire event because on a follow up appointment my foot doctor stated, “Crazy what happened because if you asked nine out of ten podiatrists with your presented situation they would have amputated and the tenth would have been open to other ideas but probably still amputated.” That really got me thinking. I know my previous doctor was great–one of the greats in the field. But would he have been praying like my new doctor and heard God say it was not the toe but the screw? I don’t know for sure but given how my other amputations were I venture to say that he would have amputated.

That means that losing my toe last year which seemed like a bad thing happening to a good person who was following all of the doctors orders actually turned into part of a miraculous testimony of saving my big toe. And really more than that because I had already lost two toes on my right foot they would not have just taken the big toe but the entire front of my foot. God allowed a seemingly bad situation turn into an amazing testimony and I am super thankful for it and having the front half of my right foot.

I don’t know what bad thing you are going through and I can not promise that there will be a miraculous testimony out of it. But I can tell you especially with what I have been describing here in this post that God loves you and he has not forgotten you or is off somewhere else helping someone else. He is walk through this bad thing right by your side and He is actively looking for a way to turn this sad time into a powerful display of his love. Just like he did for me.

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