The next day after the accident, help began streaming in—from family, from neighbors, from friends, and from church family. Meal after meal magically landed in our kitchen. I didn’t have much of an appetite, but those that were helping me did and sure didn’t have time to cook. Our church is in the next town over, so some of our church members traveled at least an hour to bring food. And this went on for weeks.
When
we brought our son home, we looked at him a few days in, and said “How could a
nine-pound baby turn the whole house upside down?” Well, I was a much bigger
baby than that with my inability to help myself, and I had turned the house
topsy turvy. Ours was an unmanageable situation with just Jerry and me. But we would find we had an embarrassment of riches in family and friends. There
was no way he could do all my jobs and his jobs here, as well as pastor a church, so our
daughter Bethany came to organize meals, help with caregiving for a time, and put together clothing I could get on over the
huge casts. Our daughter Mari hired caregivers and housekeepers, and our son
Aaron who was sick himself at the time later stepped in to help with essential
work. My sister, Tammy, Mari, and our friend Marni scoured the internet for
helpful clothing and equipment that would make our lives easier. Our foyer looked like a warehouse with the Amazon
driver's daily visits.
I
didn’t know as I sat in the hand specialist’s office that weeks later I would learn he
was also an artist. While an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina,
before his orthopedic ambitions, he drew a picture of outreached hands with the scripture Luke 9:1-6, which includes Jesus instructions to the disciples, "...He sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick." It is an astounding prophetic drawing
which hangs in his office today. It was this believing physician who put my wrists
back together.
I
had a choice about whether to have surgery, but I was told my hands could grow
back pointing upward or inward if I didn’t, so for me there was no choice. My
hands were how I did all the things I loved to do and often how I served the
Lord. I decided to go forward at once, and the surgery was thankfully scheduled
for the next day. I was a deer in the headlights with things happening so
quickly.
One
of my biggest concerns was my lungs. I’d had trouble recovering from pneumonia
in January and here in May, I was still using a maximum dose with my inhaler.
But once contacted, my pulmonologist sent a message that he believed I’d be
fine. His confidence boosted mine and when I arrived the next day for the
surgery, I had no fear.
One
way God showed up on the day of surgery is through a group gathered in the
waiting room surrounding a young woman who also faced surgery. We found out
they were from a church, and she was afraid, crying in fact. I rose from my
seat, knelt beside her, and had an opportunity to encourage her. Then I asked,
“Could I pray for you?” She nodded and it was such a sweet time. The group
began listening to the pastor’s wife who was leading in prayer through a zoom
call. They stopped her and requested she pray for me—so precious. Then when the
doc visited me before surgery, he asked me if he could pray for me. I experienced
such a sense of the Lord’s presence that entire morning.
When I awoke, I felt much as I did when I went
in, just groggier. My new casts were still from above elbow but at least stopped a
bit shorter at my knuckles. I was still swollen and if I’m honest, still felt
as if I were in a nightmare. But I was going home, I wouldn’t be alone, and I
knew God was with me.
The
day after the surgery, Bethany knelt beside me and said, “Mom, you know when
something bad happens, sometimes something else bad happens.” I nodded bracing
myself for what she might say. I knew that scenario all too well. “Well, your
closet rods have fallen.”
Sure
enough, for some unknown reason, every rod on one side had given way and
collapsed. I sighed. Really in the scheme of things, it didn’t matter, I was
not going to be using much from that closet anyway since I was so limited in
what I could wear. “Just close the door. We’ll deal with it later,” I told her.
And
we did. But as I thought about it, those closet rods would provide another metaphor
for what was happening in my life.
A
couple of weeks later, my son came, and I gave him instructions. He took everything
from the closet, so the shelves and rods could be repaired. I decided since it
was empty, it was time to purge, because my closet had become something of a
museum. And then slowly for a few minutes a day since I really couldn’t be up
for long at a time (anesthesia effects and other reasons), with one of my
helpers to be my hands, we evaluated what to keep and what to let go of. Bag
after bag was carried away.
In
my life, everything had fallen. My life closet of to do lists had been cleaned
out—my projects, my lifelong position as a church pianist, my writing (final
edits for a new book came in three days after the accident), and painting.
A question folks often ask at a time like this is, “Why?” or its variation “Why me?” I gave up that question twenty-five years ago when a friend took her own life and that event coupled with earlier trauma sent me into post-traumatic stress. Just as I was improving a couple of years later, I was diagnosed with breast cancer when my children were six and eight. But by then, I’d given up on “Why?” because the Lord had shown me that I didn’t have the puzzle pieces to understand the answer to that question—it was the finite trying to understand the infinite. “Why me?” leads to fist shaking at God demanding he defend himself. It leads to a dying spirit and really no exit door. I learned to trust God and His reasons for why he allowed all of it to happen.
The question I began to ask all those years ago was “What now?” which is a path to a renewed spirit, and God’s unlimited possibilities. The answer to that had to do with writing—in fact, the beginning of the books and blog posts was during that time. That was the answer to my “What now?” then, and I thought would continue to be so, but God might want to do something new. We’d see.
My situation with two fractured wrists would take praying and pondering. During this time, the Lord instructed me not to move too fast into telling the story but give myself time to process. I wondered what I would put back into my closet and what I would let go of. We’d see. But again, in the meantime I saw so many ways God was present and with me. That was more than enough.