Healing

After six weeks of not driving and wearing a boot on my broken right ankle, the doctor gave me good news. He said, “I can see on the x-ray that your ankle is healing. Your body is creating new bone.”  He released me to remove the boot to drive and told me only two more weeks in the boot for walking.

Then, he was funny. “No racquet ball, tennis or water skiing for you, though.” Since I’ve pretty much never done any of those three sports, I took that news quite well.

And then, I just felt proud. My body is creating new bone! How about that? I’ve been thanking God that bones and bodies and hearts can heal. Scientists don’t even quite know how it is that our bodies can heal or what exactly creates the just right condition for re-growth and new cell life in us.

In these past weeks, as I’ve poured over our new grandson, I can’t stop marveling at how the truth of scripture has come to life right before my eyes. Psalm 139:13-14,  For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Once there was nothing, and now there is baby Keller: his hands, his tiny fingers, his itty bitty finger nails, his sweet head and that kissable spot at the back of his neck. He is beautifully and wonderfully made, every inch of him. He arrived on this earth knowing how to cry, then nurse. His body somehow pre-programmed to grow and his personality all set to unfold. He is a miracle.

And imagine, if he ever falls and gets hurt or breaks his ankle, his body has been made somehow, to heal too. Or if someone breaks his heart some day or if life is hard on him, he has it within him to heal. He is fearfully and wonderfully made. We all are.

I had never broken anything except a toe before breaking my ankle. I’ve been surprised at how much it has hurt these past weeks. Without ever seeing the x-ray, I know exactly where the break is from the pain. I’ve felt the new bone growing. Healing hurts.  I guess that is true of all aspects of healing. You have to hurt to heal.

As a pastor and Christian, I have long celebrated and marveled at how we are made. I long ago surrendered to the mystery of life, healing and death, knowing I would never understand it all. Anne Lamott wrote, I didn’t need to understand the hypostatic unity of the Trinity; I just needed to turn my life over to whoever came up with redwood trees.  Plan B: Further Thoughts of Faith

I’m with her. I do not understand all mystery but I’m going to stick with the One who knit us together in our mother’s womb, so fearfully and wonderfully made. I’m betting my whole life on the One who heals broken bones and broken hearts.