The Pastor’s Piece, Pastor Kevin Cernek, FCFI Chaplain

FCFI
October 5, 2025
Body Piercing – Painful, gritty, and oddly humorous …
When I was about 6 years old, my younger brother (John, 5 years old) and I were playing in
the barn one day. I suggested we go up to the haymow and pitch down some hay. This
seemed like a good idea. He went up the ladder first with me following. I climbed behind him
lugging a pitchfork with a broken handle. About half way up, I handed the fork up to him,
which he took hold of and as he was pulling it through the chute hole, it slipped from his
hand and fell toward the ground. On the way down, it was stopped by my arm. The
three-tined pitch fork neatly pierced my right arm in three places. I remember pulling it out
with my left hand and putting it back in its proper place along the wall, and going to the
house to tell mom. I don’t remember what my brother’s response was and I don’t even
remember my mom’s reaction. All I remember is riding in the family station wagon to the
hospital with a white t-shirt tied around my arm and then the doctor flushing the wounds out
with rubbing alcohol and hydrogen peroxide. That smarted a bit.
Another time, we were pitching silage off a flatbed wagon into a feed bunk. There were
three of us this time, me, John, and Dean. As I remember it was winter and it was already
dark outside. I was probably about 10 years old by this time, making Dean about 13. Dean
took the pitchfork and with his foot, pushed it into the pile of silage and right through John’s
foot. (What goes around comes around – I guess). There was a lot of screaming and yelling
and Dean ended up carrying John into the house where Mom dressed the wound and off to
the hospital they went. John came back later that night with a gigantic bandage on his foot
and instructions to keep it elevated and no chores for a couple of weeks. That did not make
Dean happy, because he had to do John’s chores while he was laid up.
A few weeks ago I was cleaning up an old lumber pile. As I pulled boards out of the pile I
slipped a little and stepped backwards to catch my balance and my foot landed on a board
in the tall grass with a nail sticking straight up. It went right through my shoe and into my
foot. I couldn’t shake it off, so I ended up having to step on the board with my other foot in
order to pull my foot out. That did not make me happy at all. It hurt a little, but not too bad so
I kept working. Then I began to feel blood in my sock so I headed to the house to get a
better look. Regular soaking in Epsom salt seems to have healed the wound.
One time us kids were playing tackle football in the backyard so there were no helmets or
pads involved. In one play, my brother’s knee met another brother’s temple and the latter
ended up in LaLa Land. He wandered around the farm for several hours in a daze before
we realized anything was wrong with him. He was saying weird stuff and acting crazy, which
we considered normal and thought nothing of it. But when he didn’t show up for supper, we
went looking. We found him hiding out in the outside stairway to the basement. Turns out he
had a concussion. Another time my parents hosted a missionary family for dinner at our
house after church. The dad was a young guy just a little older than us and was more than
willing to join in a pickup football game in the orchard. On one play he was making a sprint
for the goal line when my cousin tackled him from behind. He went down hard and broke his
ankle. Oops. They were supposed to leave for the mission field the next day, but that ended
up being delayed a few months until his ankle healed.
I have a scar on my left pinky finger and second finger. It looks like I had five stitches in
each finger. I don’t recall ever suffering an injury there. When I quizzed my parents about it,
they didn’t seem to have any recollection of it either. I guess when you come from a family
with eight children, some things get lost in the mix. I sometimes wonder how my mom and
dad kept up with all of us
There’s a lesson in every instance in life … Every wound required someone else’s help – my
mom, the doctor, even Epsom salt. We need Jesus to heal the wounds sin has left in our
lives. Jesus was pierced, not by accident, but on purpose for our healing. He turns scars
into stories and pain into purpose.
(Kevin Cernek is Lead Pastor of Martintown Community Church in Martintown, Wisconsin).