I turned my son’s six month recovery into a twelve month recovery because I was simply trying to delay the inevitable.
About seven months ago, my eldest son dislocated his shoulder for the first time – very badly.
At the time, that happened, we were rushed to hospital in an ambulance, and he was treated in the Emergency Department of the Hospital in the acute phase of the injury. Then, we were referred to a specialist orthopaedic surgeon to deal with the matter. As a result of that referral, my son had a number of scans performed on his shoulder to assess the damage already caused and the likelihood of further pain and injury. We were told at the time that my son would have an eighty percent chance of a recurrence in the injury and would need to engage in extensive physiotherapy and rehabilitation to be brought back to health.
And so, we followed all the doctor’s orders and rested the shoulder when instructed and rehabilitated it when instructed. My son was particularly careful with that shoulder because he did not wish to re-injure it because a re-injury would mean that he required surgery to treat the shoulder and then he would be unable to use it properly or return to normal duties for around six months.
Following six months of gruelling physiotherapy (and ironically on the day of his last physiotherapy session) my son tripped in the backyard and though he did not fall onto his should, when he threw his arm out behind himself to balance himself, his should literally slipped out of the socket and dislocated a second time. This second dislocation was worse than the first and took a long time to re-locate and involved much more extensive damage to the joint and the bone. As a result of this, about a month ago, my son underwent should-repair surgery, and began his road to recovery – which is estimated to be about six months…
And I have been thinking about that today. You see, we tried to avoid surgery, and the result was that surgery was required all along. And this reminds me of suffering. We spend so much of our time trying to avoid suffering. We do things to make our lives easier and try to put ourselves in situations where we are comfortable and not needing to struggle through anything. And all we are doing is delaying the inevitable – just as I tried to delay my son’s surgery.
You see, I am a sinner. And, as a sinner, I must suffer to atone for my sins. And without that suffering I am unable to merit salvation – because only a pure soul can enter heaven and I have no chance of purifying my soul without suffering. And that means that I should not be trying to avoid suffering, I should be embracing it.
Because unless I embrace the suffering that God has bestowed upon me, I will simply be delaying the problem (and instead of suffering here on Earth, I shall be suffering later in Purgatory).
And I have been thinking about that today. Because I turned my son’s six month recovery into a twelve month recovery because I was simply trying to delay the inevitable. And when I stop and think about that it just seems like such a terrible waste of time…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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