Chosen Families

Something about a hospital seems to force our gaze toward the heavens. There are chapels. There are atriums – lofty and airy, driving skyward in a cathedral of glass and steel. There are anxious faces, tapping fingers, pacing feet. Perhaps it’s the recognition of the fragility of our bodies that reminds us of how we are greater than our mechanical parts, but not their author. It could be that we are forced to reckon with our loss of control as we’re hooked to a monitor, or waiting for a loved one’s safe return from surgery. We are reminded of how much we need SOMEONE bigger than us to fix it.

“Please,” we breathe into clasped hands. “Please, let it be okay.”

Soaring spaces at 6:10 a.m., hope sent heavenward.

My husband’s ebullience at the beach nearly two months ago cost him his shoulder. Two fractures, one bone chip, two torn tendons and a dislocation later, I’m sitting at the cafeteria in Union Memorial hospital in Baltimore, shaking my head over how an incident that came on so effortlessly (jumping into a wave during a family vacation) could become so very complex. After surgery, Matt will be in an immobilizer for six weeks – needing someone else to do almost everything for him. Then, he will begin a relatively grueling physical therapy regime that, if he’s lucky, will return him to pre-accident status in about six months to a year. All because he jumped in the ocean.

Matt spent a lot of time being angry after the accident. No one would begrudge him that. (In truth, “angry” could be too kind a distinction. “Raging,” “stiff-necked,” “irrational” and “vitriolic” would all serve similarly here.) Why would God intend a family vacation to end that way? Why couldn’t the water have been deeper, the wave higher? Why a dislocation AND all the associated injuries? Matt’s shoulder injury was just one more thing on an already long litany of crises to deal with. We were over it. I was over the moaning and whining, too. Though that’s another post.

But who were we to be mad? Did we profess to know better than God did as to what purpose this ridiculous health detour served any of us?

“Don’t be impressed with your own wisdom. Instead, fear the Lord and turn away from evil. Then you will have healing for your body and strength for your bones.” (Prov. 3:7-8)(NLT)

Matt and I are both desperate for healing. Body and soul are broken and weary. God showed me today (as He often does when I sit down to write, and not knowing where He is, find Him in the words that very nearly pen themselves) that our frustration was just an expression of our own wisdom. Trusting God, giving him our hearts by accepting His plan and moving on, cleared the pride from our eyes and showed us what really matters.

What really matters is not how many doctors you have to see before you find one that gives a rat’s you-know-what about your condition, but what you say to your husband in the OR waiting room, and how his hand feels in yours as you pray together for the surgeon’s steady hand and a safe return from anesthesia. What really matters is not the circus you need to coordinate to get the kids to school and still make it to the hospital by 6:00 a.m., but the bleary-eyed face greeting you receive from under a blue hospital bonnet, and an eventual grin that shows up from underneath the freckles.

What really matters is what God REALLY gives you when he gives you a disability – that dose of patience, that modicum of insight, some gratitude, more kindness, or the perseverance to get up and face the day when you’d rather make a tent out of your bed sheets and permanently move inside.

What really matters is what God plans to do with your disability, too. That kind of stuff is bigger than our wisdom, and always enough to heal the bones.

- Sarah