When the surgeon requires more than an hour and a four inch plate to put your collarbone back together, you know the healing process will take a minute. When he tells you on your post surgery call that the break was worse than he expected, you know the next couple of weeks will be pretty uneventful because you won't be doing much while you heal.
The question becomes, then, what lesson can I learn while I sit and heal? I was feeling good about where I was in terms of writing and my health. This break is a setback on both counts. But nothing happens to us that can't be a learning or teaching moment.
I had some initial thoughts. The first was about the nerve block that not just blocked pain, but also temporarily paralyzed my right arm. No matter how hard I tried to move it, it stayed flopped and motionless. I thought, that's kind of like faith. It's pretty useless to have a faith that isn't connected to the Source. My arm may have been connected physically to my body, but without the nerves, it served no purpose except to fill the sling I have to wear for the next couple of weeks. I may come back to that idea.
But I think for today, I need to consider what my sweet friend, Deborah, reminded me, "Default to Grace, my friend, even and especially with yourself." That's a good word.
I don't know about you, dear reader, but I have found myself angry the last couple of weeks. Maybe angry is too strong a word. Perturbed? Outraged? Astonished? That might be the best word. Astonished at world events. Astonished at national incompetence. Astonished at the great divide, not just over black and white, but even over varying shades of gray. It's a mess out there! The more I sit still, the more I read news of the day. The more I read, the more worked up I get. And to what end? Do my emotions solve national and international crises? Do I accomplish anything in the comments sections where much of my writing has been lately?
My Substack description is this:
The mystery of grace, the very nature of God poured out on people who are utterly selfish, requires more than acknowledgment. Grace is not cheap. Grace is not easy. Defaulting to Grace explores the nature of grace and other observations.
How does my outrage/astonishment/anger toward the world around me accomplish an exploration of grace? Short answer: it doesn't. Maybe this short term and unexpected requirement to be still is a reminder of the eternal focus that originally drove me to begin this Substack. Maybe I need to remember to default to grace for others and for myself. My body is healing; I went for a very slow two-mile walk yesterday, less than a week after the unexpected surgery. My anesthesia brain-fog is clearing. Even my voice is recovering from intubation. The body is an amazing thing, isn't it? Grace for myself is to practice healing by eating healthfully, moving slowly, and being grateful for modern medicine that put my shattered clavicle back together again. Grace begins with gratitude.
Jude, the brother of Jesus, reminded his readers of what it means to default to grace. He wrote,
"But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt" (Jude vv. 20-22).
Defaulting to grace, then, first requires filling up with the Holy Spirit through study and prayer. It means being connected to a body of believers, not just in appearance, but in the very nerve center of following Jesus. Like my paralyzed arm, appearing to be attached and being functionally useful to the body are different things. Contending for the faith, which is ours through the grace of God, requires actively multiplying mercy, peace and love (Jude), something that happens only when the whole body connects to the Spirit in Jesus. I may be a pinky finger in the Body of Christ, but grace demands that my part as pinky finger still needs to be moved by the nerves that are not paralyzed by the world's crises, but are actively working to show mercy, not fear, no matter how horrifying the events of this temporary world. If Jude could encourage followers of Jesus to have mercy on those who doubt in a time when the Roman Empire was at its cruelest, surely I can, we can, do the same.
I will turn my eyes toward Jesus in these last days, for it is only he who holds the future. He is faithful. He is the soon and coming King. And today we are one day closer to his return.