God broke my elbow out of love
A couple of years ago, I broke my elbow by the mercies of God. I truly believe it was God’s mercy. Am I crazy? Read my story and then you tell me.
Here is how it happened. One spring day, I had just returned home from doing my regular volunteer work at a nursing home. As I pulled into the driveway, I saw that a long limb had fallen from a tree at the end of the drive and was laying half in my yard and half in the street. Perhaps it would have been more prudent for me to leave the branch where it was and call the municipal street department. But I was concerned that someone might get hurt, so I walked over to the branch with the intention of swinging the dangerous end out of the street.
Just as I leaned forward, I accidentally stepped on a round bit of twig which rolled under the sole of my shoe and propelled me forward onto the branch. The pain I experienced in my arm was literally blinding. I was perfectly conscious but everything went black for a few seconds. As I lie there, I prayed, “Lord, have mercy,” and “How long am I going to have to lie here in the road until a driver comes along and hopefully sees me before hitting me?” Almost immediately my neighbor across the street came running over, managed to help me to a seated position and got my husband, who took me to the emergency room where a specialist set my broken elbow and predicted that I would likely never regain full mobility in the elbow.
So how was any of that God’s mercy? I’ll tell you—it was God’s providence and His grace from start to finish.
First of all, God had warned me in advance. For at least a month before the accident, during my daily prayer walk I became extremely aware of the many twigs and branches littering the roads and walkways in my neighborhood and repeatedly thought how very easy it would be to trip on one and break something. I thanked the Lord for the fact that, in all my life, I had never broken a bone (except, perhaps, a toe). Looking back on it, I recognized that often thoughts that come to me during prayer end up coming to pass, as this had.
Secondly, my neighbor (bless his heart) saw me fall and came to my rescue when he is almost never home at that time of day.
Also, after months of painful occupational therapy, my relentless therapist and I proved the physician wrong. I regained full mobility in my arm. I retain a little bit of calcium that formed at the break that makes a tiny pop sound when I twist my forearm but does not hurt. I love that little pop. It reminds me to be grateful to God for healing me completely, against the odds.
And, finally, I broke my elbow on Holy Thursday—the afternoon before Good Friday. On the night he was betrayed, at the last supper before he suffered and died for my sins, Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, and said, “This is my body that is for you.” (1 Cor. 11:23) And because I live as part of the body of Christ, no longer I alone but Christ who lives in me, Jesus allowed me the great privilege of being blessed and broken and sharing a teeny-tiny bit in his sufferings that Good Friday—of uniting my suffering with His for the sake of His body, the Church. As it says in Colossians 1:24 “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh, I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the Church.”
So, am I crazy? If I am, then I’m happy to be crazy in love with Jesus. And, every time I pop my elbow, I smile because I know that Jesus is crazy in love with me, too.
Other Christian brothers and sisters claim that we Catholics put too much emphasis on suffering, as if we were a bunch of masochists who look for ways to suffer. I want to talk more about this topic of suffering in future posts. Just let me say for now, that It’s not about finding avoidable suffering. It’s about finding meaning in the suffering that is unavoidable.