Healed Landscaper Pursues His Passion

Tom has spent his entire career as a landscaper in the Pacific Northwest.

Tom says, “I enjoy working outside. I like trying to make things look natural.”

But in the late 90s, while on the job, Tom had an accident with a wood chipper.

Tom recalls, “… this particular chipper would actually grab whatever you had, so you wouldn’t quite get loose of it, and it would jerk your arm … actually ended up tearing the rotator cuff.”

Tom didn’t have any medical insurance and couldn’t afford to see a doctor. So, he had to manage the pain on his own.

Tom remembers, “Pretty much just was careful with it and made sure I didn’t hurt it.  And if I did it was put heat on it at night and lay down. To take the weight off of it when I'm driving I sit with my fist doubled up on the seat…made it more comfortable to sit that way.”

Over the years, as the pain got worse, Tom would often have to ask his co-workers for help.

Tom recounts “… when I raised up above… to do something like that or run the hedge trimmers- that was a no-no, that could cause pain for several days.”

Eventually just doing everyday things were painful.     

Tom explains, “Even shaking hands with somebody, sometimes they, you know, you’re done but they are not, and they kinda pull. That would cause the shoulder to hurt… It got to where you- I didn’t want to lift my arm.”

Years later Tom got insurance and saw a doctor. An MRI confirmed he had torn his rotator cuff. The next step was surgery… until one day, when the job was rained out, Tom decided to watch The 700 Club.

Gordon praying, “There’s someone you’re asking, ‘Please say rotator cuff’, you have a rotator cuff injury in your right shoulder, it’s very painful for you to move’”    

Tom remembers, “So that kinda piqued my interest. But then when he said it was the right side, I just yelled out, ‘Yah, I’m claiming that, that’s mine!’ Like a little kid after candy… and then I decided well, you know, ‘If God healed me, maybe I ought to just raise my arm and-and praise Him for it. And so I raise my arm and I kinda looked over at it, and it was – I could hear it crunching, but I had it up higher than I’ve ever had it. And I was, ‘Wow!’” You know? No more pain. It was gone.”

For the first time in over 20 years, he worked all day without shoulder pain, and, thanks to God’s gift of healing, it’s never come back.

Tom says, “It chokes me up… I tell everybody. You know, it doesn’t matter whether they're a Christian or not, I-I tell them "Hey, this is what God did for me.”