Beyond Repair

Read: Matthew 15:29-31

March 11, 2013 started out like any other day.  I got up and went to work.  I was training my new co-worker who would help ease the burden of my increasing workload. I had been flying solo for a few years, you know, the jack of all trades, the one who had to do everything.

At the end of his first day of training, I drove home and pulled into my driveway.  It had been raining, so the blacktop on my slightly sloped driveway was glossy black from the moisture. The garbage barrel was in the garage, and the next day was trash pick up day.  So, I parked my car on the driveway, and proceeded to retrieve the garbage barrel from the garage and roll it down the slope of the driveway.

Suddenly, things went into slow motion.  I felt my slippery dress shoes slip like skates on an icy pond. I felt my body tip backwards.  My right hand released the handle of the garbage barrel.  I instinctively reached down to brace my inevitable fall onto the glossy black driveway. 

Immediately, pain went shooting through my right arm.  As I peeled myself off the driveway, I looked down at my disfigured right wrist.  I looked like the letter Z.  I ran into the house screaming, and calling out for my husband, “I just broke my arm!!! Please come, take me to the hospital!” 

The result?  Surgery with a plate and four screws in my right wrist. 

Then followed 6 weeks of recovery and 90 days of physical therapy. All I kept thinking was, “Will I ever be the same again?”

 About 2 months in, I woke up in the middle of the night with tingling in my hand.  I soon discovered that my hand was completely numb from the wrist to my ends of my fingertips. I hurried downstairs to the kitchen table, gently rubbing and massaging my hand, but finding no relief.  I began rocking myself back and forth and sobbing.  Desperately, I cried out to God to help me, to heal me. After a long hour and a half, the feeling slowing came back to my hand. The following week when I asked my doctor about this experience, his response was, “That should get better.” 

Perhaps you have experienced things in your life, that left you feeling lame, blind, crippled, mute or just plain beyond repair.  Physical injury, illness, scars of past emotional trauma, or the disappointments and regrets of life may have left you feeling hopelessly broken, without hope of ever being “normal” again.  

Whatever suffering of body, mind or spirit that haunts you, take peace in this!  Our God is a God of compassion, of restoration, of healing.  He sees you and hears your cries for help.  In His Sovereignty, He knows best how to heal your wounds.  He will use even this difficult time to display His amazing and powerful love FOR you and THROUGH YOU!   
Hold tight to the foot of the cross where Jesus suffered in your place.  He was beaten for transgression and bruised for our iniquities.  By His stripes we are healed!

Thank You,  Jesus for healing me when I have felt beyond repair. Help me to hold tight to the cross, cling to the power of Your resurrection and the put ALL my hope in You!