I don't think I've admitted this to you before, but I have a bit of clumsiness about me. I'm one of those people who can trip on nothing - and do it spectacularly ungracefully, too. I have had stitches multiple times. Often enough that for a while my family wouldn't let me even cut my own meat at dinner or have sharp objects anywhere near me. I've had a couple concussions too - at least I remember a couple vaguely. But in all my clumsiness I had never broken a bone.
Then last Wednesday I took an amazingly ungraceful fall. I have a sunken living room and I took a step backward and caught my foot on the step. I stumbled into the open front door, stumbled further and ran into the wall, stepped on our cat carrier, and ultimately fell on my backside on the tile floor. Whenever I tell people about this, the first heartwarming question they ask is "Why was no one taking a video?" I'm sure it was hilarious to watch, and even I saw the humor in it at the time. I have fallen so often and usually in very embarrassing ways and places, that I've learned to laugh when it happens.
I got myself up and determined that I was indeed okay, but my hands were a little sore. As the day wore on, I realized that my right hand was not okay after all. My little finger was swollen and bruised. My husband asked if I could make a fist. My loving response was, "Of course I can make a fist!" But I when I did I gasped in pain. I smiled as I looked up at Joel. "I can make a fist. It just hurts to do it." My husband was certain I had broken my finger. That night I met up with my parents and sister and they were all certain that I had broken my finger as well. I sent pictures to my aunt who is a nurse and she said it looked bad, too.
With all of this, I still convinced myself it wasn't broken, just badly bruised. Going to the doctor would just be expensive and all they would do was tape my fingers together so I would just treat it myself. So for two days I taped my fingers together. By the way, it's hard to type with your fingers taped together. And I'm frantically trying to get the second Holliday Hotel book finished and published by February. So I would untape my fingers to write - for just a little bit.
Saturday morning I woke up and my finger hurt while doing anything. My dad, Joel and I had planned to go golfing on Monday morning, and I was starting to get the feeling that maybe this wasn't just a bruise and maybe we weren't treating it right. After discussing it with Joel for a while, we decided that I had better go to urgent care and get it checked out. The doctor just looking at it said that she would be surprised if it wasn't broken, but she needed x-rays for confirmation.
Surprisingly, it wasn't broken (I still have never had a broken bone!), but I had sprained my knuckle - the one where my finger joins with my hand. When I sent the diagnosis to my aunt, her response was "Only you." I had never heard of a sprained knuckle before, but the fix is a very impressive splint (shown in the picture above) to keep me from bending my finger. No wonder my finger was getting worse instead of better! Even with my fingers taped together I could still bend my knuckle. Joel asked the doctor about golfing on Monday, and I was sure I wouldn't be able to go, but she was confident that with Saturday evening and all day Sunday in the splint, I would be able to go golfing. In fact, she didn't want me to wear the splint for too long because joints get stiff very quickly. I was surprised, happy, and a bit skeptical. My finger still hurt and just look at that splint!
But Sunday night I removed my splint to take my shower and curled my hand into a fist. She was definitely right about joints becoming stiff! Even my knuckles that weren't sprained hurt as I curled them. But by the end of my shower I was amazed at how good my hand felt. The bruising and swelling were down and it felt almost normal. The next morning I took the splint off and was so excited to see how good I felt. I was even able to go golfing for all 18 holes.
When I tried to diagnose and treat myself, I only made things worse, but when I let the professional take charge, my hand healed quickly and I was able to get back to my normal life and activities. So often with sin, we do the same thing. We decorate it so it doesn't look like sin - it's not gossip, it's a prayer request. Or we think that if we just have the right self-help book and attitude it'll be fixed. Or we pretend it's not there and think it'll just go away. We put a bandage on, but don't understand what the real problem is. But once we turn to God and let Him take control, He can forgive us, wash us, and change us. When He's finished we look back and wonder why it ever took us so long to go to the professional in the first place. We realize that it would have saved us a lot of pain if we had only turned to Him when we first saw the problem.
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