EXPRESSIONS OF FAITH
Every situation offers lessons

By Mary Aley Wilkinson

One tranquil evening I slipped on my bedroom carpet and broke my right wrist. A searing pain coursed through my hand, which grew to twice its normal size. The injury resulted in shattered bones with breaks in four places.

My activity-centered, goal-oriented life changed drastically. The long daily "To Do" lists were obsolete. After the initial flurry of doctors and X-rays, I contemplated the heavy cast, which engulfed my right arm from the knuckles of my hand to just under the armpit.

How would I manage? I live alone. My sons are far away. One lives in Durango, Colo., the other in Oaxaca, Mexico. Little tasks such as turning the key to my front door or opening a cereal box took on gigantic proportions. Merely getting dressed was exhausting. I could not drive. I could not write. The fingers of my left hand lacked the dexterity to open a bobby pin to fix my hair. How would I ever manage?

My thoughts became dark and self-accusatory: How could I have been so clumsy?

I revisited the scene over and over. I had been on my way to the bathroom to deposit some boxes of Kleenex. Evidently my foot turned, causing me to fall. My hand must have been so badly damaged because I was gripping the boxes of Kleenex and trying simultaneously to brace my fall.

Well-meaning people asked me how it happened. I responded with a pat answer ending with, "Most accidents happen at home, you know." I felt guilty about the fact that it had happened to me. Once a distant acquaintance called to inquire about my accident and I snapped defiantly, "Well, I slipped and fell in my bedroom. That's what old ladies do, you know. They slip and fall." It was at this point that I realized that more than my wrist needed healing.

As was my practice, I turned to the Bible for consolation. I sought out the Psalms because they reflect humankind in all its trials and tribulations. Psalm 103 spoke to me:

"Praise the Lord O my soul; / all my inmost being, praise his holy name. / Praise the Lord O my soul, and forget not all his benefits / Who forgives all your sins / And heals all your diseases, / Who redeems your life from the pit / And crowns you with love and compassion, / who satisfies your desires with good things / So that your youth is renewed like the eagle's."

I recited these verses each morning along with a list of praises for all the mercy God has shown me during. I thanked him for the beautiful Hawai'i weather, for my home, for my doctors, for all the people who were trying to help. The more I became content with my situation, the more I felt myself surrounded by love. Friends called, sent cards, offered to shop for me, transported me, prayed for me, and shared my gloomier moments. Love and compassion were showered on me daily.

I became more adept with my left hand. The key in my lock turned more smoothly. I was even able to write, although it looked like chicken scratches.

More and more I realized that there are lessons to be learned from every condition in which we find ourselves. I am slowly learning patience and acceptance and perhaps most importantly, how to receive with grace the love of others.

I have another month of casts and after that another month of therapy. I have been told that my wrist will never be the same. But then neither will I. I will emerge from this trial a renewed and more enlightened person, singing God's praises and recalling the line from a hymn: "God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps in the sea, and rides upon the storm."

Mary Aley Wilkinson is a deacon at First Presbyterian Church of Honolulu.