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Slowly, gradually, I learned to walk again. The first day I got out of bed on my own, I took three steps. I slumped back onto the bed, feeling a wave of exhaustion overwhelm me. But I smiled. I had walked. Three steps sounds like so little, and yet I felt a powerful sense of accomplishment.

So much of recovery from a trauma of this magnitude has a striking similarity to training a child in infancy. I had been helpless for such a long time that when I could finally go to the bathroom by myself, it felt like a remarkable accomplishment. Walking again was a stark reminder of what we all take for granted every day as we talk, move, and live.

When I could walk again, it was not only a singular accomplishment but a tribute to hundreds of medical people who worked tirelessly to help me. It was also a tribute to my friends and family who believed in me, although they couldn’t have known just how difficult it would be for me to put one foot in front of the other.

While I suppose walking represented a certain triumph of will, it also meant I could begin to live in relative normalcy. I often thought of the last night at Trinity Pines when J. V . Thomas and I took our walk around the camp. That was my last normal walk ever. For many months no one was sure I’d ever walk again. For a long time, taking just three shaky steps seemed like climbing Mount Everest.

“I did it!” I shouted to the silent room. “I walked! I walked.”

Taking those first steps at home on my own remains one of the best moments of my recovery. Those few steps convinced me that I was getting better. Now I had goals to work toward. I had gone through the worst part of the recovery. I knew I would continue to improve. Each day I took a few more steps. By the end of the week, I had made a complete circle of the living room.

When Eva came home and watched me demonstrate my daily progress, her smile made me feel as if I had won a marathon. She reacted with absolute joyful delight the afternoon I showed her that I could walk throughout the house all by myself.

A week after I came home from the hospital, I had decided I wanted to go to church on a Sunday morning.

In retrospect, it was premature, but I felt a burning desire to be back with people I loved and to worship with them. With the help of a small group, we planned for them to help me get there. In case I couldn’t make it, we didn’t want to disappoint anyone, so we decided not to announce it to the congregation.

By then I could sit in a wheelchair—as long as someone was there to lift me out of bed and into it—but I still couldn’t stand up. Six friends from church came to our house and took the seats out of one of the church vans. At the church, they had constructed a ramp so they could roll me up to its doors.

I kept thinking of all the work I had laid on them, and several times I started to apologize, but they assured me it was their pleasure.

Then I remembered Jay’s words. My family and friends saw me the first day of the accident. I never saw what I looked like. They endured the shock and the fear. They had to come to grips with the possibility of my death or my long-term disability. In some respects, this ordeal was more difficult for my family and friends than it was for me. They loved being able to help me. In a way, this was part of their own recovery, and they were glad to be able to do something special for me.

Yet, as much as I wanted to attend the worship service that morning, it was still hard to let them do everything for me. I felt totally helpless and absolutely dependent on them. As I realized that once again, I smiled.

“Thank you,” I said and then allowed them to take care of me.

They carefully put me into the van, drove me to the church, and pulled up at the side door. When one of the men in the van opened the door, church members on their way into the sanctuary saw me.

“Look! It’s Pastor Don!” someone yelled.

I heard cheering and clapping as people stood around and made way for the men to wheel me up the ramp.

Just then, everything turned chaotic. People