The Broken Hand of God

My son got high yesterday. He’s seven. To my knowledge it was his first time under the influence. In his hazy eyes, his mother had four heads with grass sprouting from each, using the bathroom was really funny, and his bed was “like super soft.”

He was under the influence of drugs because he broke a couple bones in his arm. He got real low before he was made real high by medical professionals. His first trip over the handlebars prompted our first trip (in a month) to the ER.

His cast is green and will really limit his plans to swim the summer away. After dinner, we stalked the neighborhood streets for children to sign his cast, but none were around. The scrawls of MAMA and DAD and JOEY and HOPE and OZZIE had to carry the day. Family had to be enough. Family is enough, especially when that family extends. We got calls from parents and uncles and aunts, we got help with managing the hospital trip from a church friend, a neighbor brought him home after his accident in her mini-van, workmates checked in. There was empty space on the cast, but we felt pretty full, walking home, hand in mangled hand.

Earlier in that high-and-low day, my wife and I woke up talking about hands. A little girl had an unfortunate run-in with a shark and injured her hand, poor thing. This was in a town in Florida. A town in Florida we are visiting in a few weeks. A town in Florida we are visiting in a few weeks with a son who is terrified of sharks. We picture MJ encountering his fear, a shark, and how that family must feel as they deal with a destroyed hand, a destroyed day. Then, safely inland, about as far from a shark as one can be stateside, he broke his arm—temporarily, he lost his hand.

I broke my arm when I was young. Both of them, actually. You probably did too. A hand, a finger, a leg . . . something. This isn’t a huge deal, but as a parent, of course, you feel it. That all-too-familiar sensation that this shark-filled world is beyond our control. We simply cannot protect our children, try as we might.

I went to bed restless. It wasn’t the broken arm, as much as the wonder of it. Our stubborn boy who struggles with pain, handled the day with grace and maturity (probably the drugs helped). His younger brother, a younger brother, watched him take phone calls, get pampered, and receive a delivered gift without jealousy or spite or anger. He supported his brother on our walk; he served him with honor and, in so doing, brought honor upon himself. My wife and I prayed in bed and held hands. Her dad, asleep in our basement, had watched our other kids as the day had demanded. Coworkers reached out, our community rallied in grossly wonderful disproportion. Family was more than enough.

I wish he hadn’t broken his arm. I wish that for everyone, but especially my sweet, wild boy. It is a bad thing, surely. Yet so many seeds of goodness seem to be taking root and sprouting from it.

Then, still restless, I pondered God. I credited him with the good fortune that sprung up from this misfortune. The familiar thought came to mind: But couldn’t there be another way to achieve love and care—to teach us and grow us? Thing is, none of those other hypothetical cards were dealt. This is the actual, the only reality we know. It could, alone, disprove a good God, I guess. It could limit his capabilities. But as real and sturdy as that little green cast comes the choice for me and mine: to look through our circumstances at God or to look through God at our circumstances. In choosing the latter, yesterday became just another day the Lord has made; one we could be glad and rejoice in, shattered bones, tears, and all.

The doctor is pretty sure my boy will heal and be stronger from this. I think so too. In more ways than one. And I’ve chosen to go along with him—flipping over the handlebars before us into whatever awaits.

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