CRASH! The lid to the sugar dish exploded on contact with the floor, scattering shards of glass in every direction. Anger flashed briefly in my eyes but was quickly replaced by embarrassment. What was now debris had once been part of a beautiful set of China handed down for generations. Clumsily putting away our morning coffee, the blame was all mine for destroying an irreplaceable heirloom.
This ornately decorative item didn’t mean much to me, but was special to Kim. Flushed with shame, I mumbled an apology to her. This was just one more thing to add to the growing list of mistakes I have made lately.
Functioning with a wounded hand hasn’t been easy.
It has been one month since my injury. For those who did not read my last post, Injured!, while working in the garage with my table saw, my right thumb and index finger were cut by the powerful blade. My thumb suffered several deep tissue cuts and my right index finger was amputated at the end joint, shortening my finger by about an inch.
Still stitched and wrapped in a splint, my finger protrudes awkwardly and interrupts a lot of previously normal activities (like putting away a sugar dish). My thumb is bandaged and stiff, further impeding my ability to perform simple tasks.
Everything is healing, but it’s a frustrating, slow process.
For the first two to three days after the accident, the pain was severe and I stayed home generally surrendering to my situation. Unable to focus my thoughts to any real extent, I confined myself to my recliner and binge-watched episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Kim patiently attended to me, alerted me each time medine was due and performed all but my most basic tasks.
During that time, the outpouring of support from my friends and family was amazing. Texts poured in checking on me and telling me that I was in their prayers. Meals arrived routinely, and every request that I made for help was honored.
Over time the intensity of the discomfort has subsided, allowing me to resume an expanding list of activities. However, the pain has continued either unexpectedly searing while I sit still or when I bang my finger into something as I instinctively move through reflexive motions.
Worse than the physical pain are the agonizing, traumatic flashbacks. Like a gif file attached to a text message that loops every few seconds, my brain conjures recurring images of my injury. Each repetition causes me to cringe and try unsuccessfully to shake the visions out of my head as they ruthlessly repeat again and again. My brain brutally holds me captive while it resurrects a nightmare, trying desperately to process details to keep me safe in the future.
My thumb is the lesser injury, This week I removed the tape and gauze, thinking it had healed adequately to be exposed. One of the gashes across my thumbpad is angry-looking, purple scar tissue. The other gash is still covered with a long scab. In the spot with the deepest cut, the wound is still open. Immobilized for a month, my thumb joint has a very limited range of motion. Overall, it is ugly to look at and people automatically wince when they see it.
Hoping to be encouraged by removing the bandages and seeing progress, instead disappointment was my reward. It is worse than I had imagined it to be.
I try not to talk much about it to the people in my everyday circle. While my mind may be constantly attentive to the invisible spasms racing through my nervous system, their minds are occupied by more pleasant thoughts. Why would I want to drag them into my distress?
All of us suffer injuries during our life, whether physical, emotional or spiritual. The initial trauma passes in a few days, but the pain lingers for a long time. Healing comes excruciatingly slowly and continues long after the rest of the world has returned to their routine.
People tell me that they are praying for me, and I believe them. Most of them ask for rapid healing and some petition for miraculous restoration. They love me and hate to see me in pain. I am grateful.
Although I can now perform most tasks, the twinges are disruptive to my concentration. My thoughts can be heavy knowing that my hand will take a long time to stabilize and at some level will never be the same. I have prayed for supernatural intervention, but acknowledge that it may not come.
However, my greatest request isn’t for the pain to go away, At some level, I accept that it is part of this life. If I were suddenly immune to its effects, my connection to people in this broken world would be simulataneously shattered. That price for comfort would be too high. Pain is part of my bond to loved ones. Feeling its torturous effects makes me empathetic to others.
The truly frightening part of pain is loneliness. Overwhelmed by suffering, no one else can break through while we try to forcefully trap a monster inside a locked box. During that battle, we are alone.
When healing lasts for days, weeks, or even months the physical duress can be easier to endure than the emotional isolation.
During the past weeks, most of my prayers have been for God to comfort me. I crave reminders that I am loved, for Him to wrap me in His arms and give me His peace. While my body screams for relief, my soul cries out for sympathy.
God has overwhelmingly answered my prayers. Every day, many people reach out to me in different ways. They are inspired by the Spirit, and I am thankful for each effort, large or small. Whether they are aware or not, they are my Healers.
Kim has constantly been by my side. Erin held my hand during surgery. Mary Jo visited me in the hospital. Pam cleaned the house so we wouldn’t have to see the mess left behind. Columba brought dinner. Carra changed my bandage and monitored my progress. Both Steves checked in daily. James drove up from Austin to offer help. Hank did woodworking for me. Lana encouraged me to share my story. Countless others played a part.
Every text and call brought me comfort. Each simple act of assistance provided a reminder that I am loved. Patiently reading my thoughts in this blog and posting a response is an act of consideration.
If I ask you to focus on the word “healer” and tell me what you envision, most people would describe a doctor or nurse. Although I am enormously grateful to them for their skill, there is another powerful version of a healer that applies to most of you.
Thank you for each time you have acted in compassion. You are an extension of the Father, who is more powerful than a mere Creator. He is a Reconciler who restores broken people back to the original plan.
You hold the power to ease pain. Don’t believe that your gift is small or your capability limited. To this broken person, you were precisely the relief that was needed. You sat with me in the dust, reminding me that I am never alone.
Ironically, this mortal body continues to heal itself while our timeless souls can sustain lasting damage. While physical pain may lay claim to my body, I have prayed without ceasing to bring comfort to my ailing spirit. God heard my cries and responded with compassion. He sent you.
Too many people to name have given me a measure of healing these past four weeks. Hopefully, I can honor you by passing along the same gift to others. Please accept my heartfelt gratitude.
Although this post deals with a nasty injury, for the sake of squeamish readers, I promise to avoid graphic details.
My last post, “The Playful Pursuit of Passions” detailed my recent fascination with woodworking, but anyone who knows me well is aware that this isn’t a newfound interest. I have been planning and building projects for over thirty years. My garage is a warehouse of assorted saws, drills, sanders, and other noisy, whirring contraptions that spout sawdust like a volcano while they transform piles of wood into things of beauty.
One of the great joys of my life has been listening to Kim describe something she saw in a magazine or on TV and imagining how to bring her vision to life. I have impatiently stood by my workbench on countless Saturday mornings waiting for the clock to strike 9:00 a.m. so I could pull the trigger on one of my favorite noisemakers without fear of angry reprisal from a neighbor.
That is where this story found me on the Monday morning between this past Christmas and New Year’s Day. I was on vacation for the entire week and was anxious to immerse myself in my projects. When the clock struck 9:00, I flicked on my table saw to use in the same fashion I have done thousands of times in the past. This time was different though. Something went terribly, horribly wrong.
For those who are unaware, table saws are one of the most useful tools in a woodworking shop, but they are also the mpst dangerous. In the United States alone, they are resonsible for 30,000 emergency room visits and 4,000 amputations every year. They injure the novice and the expert alike, with the blink of an eye separating a normal use from a life-altering injury.
Trauma has blurred the specifics, but while performing a routine task, my right index finger and thumb contacted the saw blade while it was powered on, spinning at full speed.
Kim was working inside when I stepped through the door and said “Kim! Emergency! I need to go to the hospital.”
Over the next few hours, E.R. staff explained to me that my thumb had suffered a nasty tissue cut, but would heal normally in time. My index finger, however, was very different. The blade had damaged the finger so badly that it would be necessary to amputate about 1″ from the tip, just below the first joint.
Over the next hours, skilled doctors did their best to bandage my thumb and perform the requisite surgery on my finger. My first day of vacation ended at 8:00p.m. as I checked out of the hospital and Kim drove us to the Walmart pharmacy to fill my hydrocodone prescription (a strong opioid for pain relief).
Contrary to popular belief, severe lacerations don’t hurt immediately. The really bad pain takes hours to set in. As the numbing injections wore off that night, drug-induced sleep came in fitful spurts, interrupted by searing pain that was softened every few hours by another dosage. It was the third day before the pain subsided allowing me to form coherent thoughts and begin to venture beyond my bed and favorite chair.
Still mostly in shock and internal denial of my situation, I puttered about the house, busying myself with trivial tasks whose real purpose was to distract me from thinking about what had happened and what it would mean to my future. My priority was to avoid the cringes caused by the recurring, traumatic flashbacks of the fateful moment.
In those times, we realize how little control we exercise over the thoughts that erupt from our minds or the reflexive motions that try to move body parts that are damaged or missing. For the first days, I began the slow process of retraining myself to perform simple tasks that were no longer simple – brushing my teeth left-handed, buttoning my shirt, tying my shoes, and finding a comfortable sleeping position.
I expect to be learning tasks like that for several more months to come. Clumsily typing this blog post is a perfect example.
Two weeks have now passed and the doctor’s office just changed my initial bandages and took x-rays. For the first time, my eyes rested on a damaged thumb and a finger that will never be the same. It was hard to look at them, their damaged form almost uncomparable to the hand I have taken for granted my whole life.
I noticed that the original, white bandages were replaced with skin-colored ones. In a culture that associates health with happiness, it was relieving to camouflage my wounds slightly. I hoped that people wouldn’t notice and stare like they have the past two weeks.
In an instant, my Playful Pursuit of Passion became a devastating injury that will take months to heal and will never recover full function.
My brain knows that I am blessed that the damage was limited. Thousands of people each year are less fortunate. My mouth speaks light-heartedly and optimistically, trying to convince myself and everyone around me that it is all OK. But my soul is sorrowful.
My own carelessness brought me to this point. There is no one else to blame. Lulled into a false sense of security, I got too comfortable with the dangers that surrounded me. No matter how safe I am in the future, this cannot be undone. I am trying to achieve a balance of moving forward against the alarms going off in my head, alerting me to risks both real and imaginary. It is going to be a slow process.
Pain is passing and memories become cloudy in time. Lost innocence is not so easily regained.
I am very good at surviving through tragedy but not in dealing with loss. When violent, recurring memories of that fateful moment haunt my mind, I am tempted to slam my eyes tightly and shake my head until they disperse. The time will come when I need to face these nightmares, but I’m not ready yet. First my body needs to heal further, and when I am stronger, then I can battle my fears.
In the meantime, I pray for God to give me peace and to restore my broken body and spirit.
I wish that I could conclude this blog entry with a brightly colored text box containing a single-phrase Bible verse that is uplifting and encouraging. That would be a lie though. I am not ready for that yet.
All of us hurt sometimes. We have to admit it to ourselves and to others, not just pretend the pain isn’t real and ignore the thick, ugly scars forming around our souls. We must patiently endure a slow healing process that never comes fast enough to a society obsessed with instant gratification.
In the next coming days if you pass me in the hall and ask if I’m OK, then I will probably smile and tell you that I am getting better all the time. The hard truth is that I don’t have the words to capture my complex feelings or to distinguish the people who are genuinely interested from those merely saying hello. The reality is that I’m taking things a moment at a time.
I will continue to stand in faith that the God who gave me playful passions will restore my soul to enjoy them again. Through him, the glee will return. He will not allow my heart to grow cold while I hide from my fears. That will not be my story.
As I cope with the pain, clumsily re-learn to perform tasks that were easy as a child, and confront my new reality, I have thought about what I hope for. As injuries and age diminish a body that will not last forever, I put my hope in God to honor this request.
God grant me this wish – that I grow old with the heart of a young child.
After posting a blog entry on January 17 of last year, Making Waves went suddenly and unexpectedly silent. It was a very strange feeling since a hundred blog entries had poured out over the previous 2 1/2 years. Never knowing what the next subject might be, I had grown accustomed to a new topic being on my heart every week or so.
Then all of a sudden – nothing.
It wasn’t that I was too busy or de-motivated. Without warning, the flow of ideas stopped. Nothing came. Silence.
I longed to write and started a few failed endeavors but was grasping at something that simply wasn’t there.
Instead, a tugging at my heart led me to compile Your Loving Son, James for my dad. I gave myself over to the effort without knowing exactly what the finished product would be.
Lots of the time was spent in research. Hours were spent combing through internet sites looking for details of a 2nd Lieutenant’s all-too-brief military career. Even more time was spent reading hundreds of pages of letters written from a young man to his mother while he was going through pilot training. Finally, the actual writing took over as I decided how to tell his story to his son, my dad, who never knew him. It was hard work but more importantly, it was a ton of fun.
I tried desperately to get to know my grandfather, who was my children’s age at the time – while he enlisted in the Army during WW2, got married, had children, and was eventually deployed to the war in Europe. His letters were seldom somber or serious, mostly light news-of-the-day conversations with his mom. Convinced that I could get to know him through those correspondences, I tried to imagine what he was going through during each letter.
Emotionally, it was draining. He was full of hope for the future, love for his family, and ready to enjoy life. As he wrote those letters, he couldn’t have known what I did when I was reading them. His days in this world were growing short. He would never get the chance to realize his dreams. His life would soon be cut short in the skies above Germany. His family would mourn and never fully come to grips with the loss. His young sons would remain strangers, not learning their father’s story for over seventy years.
Compelled to finish the book, all of my free time was consumed telling a story that transcended generations of my family. I didn’t know what to expect when I was done, but felt drawn to the task. Every energy I had went into it.
Available on Amazon.com
After months, it was complete. Finishing a book is difficult. There is a gap between when you have put it out there and the time later when people have had a chance to read it. The wait to you see if your efforts hit the mark is difficult.
After handing my father his copy, I drove back home from Tennessee to Texas, wondering what was next. Several more failed arrempts at blog-writing followed, but I was trying to force something that needed to flow naturally.
No voice spoke to me about Making Waves, so it continued to sit silently on the shelf for several more months.
Soon, a woodworking project caught my attention. Still focused on a family theme, I built a cutting board from 50-year-old pieces of my dad’s workbench to present to my son. It was slow, tedious work, but eventually the board with the Roman numeral 3 (honoring my son James the 3rd) was completed.
In the process, I caught woodworking fever. For reasons I cannot explain, my brain buzzed constantly with ideas. I was drawn to spend all my waking hours in the garage running tools or on-line studying techniques. It was all I talked about.
Cutting boards, coasters, wine caddies, and more began piling up. Although joy poured out of me in my work, I wondered “Why this?”
I have always tried to trust the God who created my passions. When He stirs a fire in my soul, I try to fan the flames. He has always used the effort for His purpose, but this time I wondered how He would use this for His glory. This time, was I merely indulging myself?
Throughout First Fruits, Making Waves, and even Your Loving Son, I always had some vision of what God was using them for. This was different. How could he use a guy in his garage making sawdust to advance His kingdom?
Then calls started coming in. Many asked for boards with something other than traditional last names or a favorite phrase. “Can you make a cutting board with Galatians 2:20 engraved on it? How about Romans 8:39? Romans 8:28? Matthew 28? An adaptation of a verse from 2 Timothy? Do you have coasters with the Tree of Life on them?”
I was stunned. God wasn’t. He always had a plan for my faithfulness.
Many times, God doesn’t give us clear direction of something to do. Instead, he ignites a passion inside us, hoping that as we pursue the joy of our heart, we will find closer relationship Him.
The talents we are given come from Him. The passions of our heart do too. When we give ourselves over to them fully holding on by faith that He will use it for His glory, then amazing things happen. He continues to give me brief glimpses of how he is using me as part of his master plan, even if I never see the full picture.
Just a peek is enough to refresh my spirit. It reminds me that His plan isn’t something; it is someone. We are his plan.
His plan isn’t about the outcome of the work we do. After all He is better equipped to do that himself; he just wants us to enjoy ourselves with him while we fulfill the purposes He created us for.
We often view God as the Master Chess Player, carefully coordinating the movements of all the pieces on the playing board. However, I believe He is more of the Hopeful Romantic, longing to show us how much He loves us and inspiring us with ways that we can show our love.
Obedience is found in our gleeful romps through the day more than long-faced submission to His wlll. After all, God is love.
It is rewarding to see how God uses the things that we do, but much more rewarding to discover Him in the pursuit of our passions.
I don’t know what will come next, but that’s OK. I know who I am doing it for.
