We had already planned to watch my son and his team play at the tri-match the following day in Maryland, but with my son's accident, nothing could have held me back from visiting him. As we neared the school, my heart was ready to jump out of my skin. Even though I can be squeamish with blood and gore, I had to see my son and his finger. When I entered the gymnasium, I first scanned for my son on the bench, thinking he would be resting with his hand propped up. However, to my surprise, I found him on the court instead. He was assisting his team with warm-ups. With the injured hand behind his back and using just his right hand, he was helping set the balls to his teammates. Now, if I had a say in any of it, he would be standing far away from any moving object.
I waited anxiously near the court to talk with my son. He demonstrated what had happened during the game the night before and repeated what the doctors said. He was feeling okay and trying to have a positive attitude. I tried to feed off his energy and spirit, but at any second, I could have started to cry. My heart broke for him as I listened and imagined the injury all over again and the pain he had to suffer through. How could this have happened? Were there any long-term issues to look out for? Can he do anything to prevent this from happening again? I was upset for my son as he was training hard and working double time to impact his team's season positively. I didn't say anything and kept my nagging thoughts to myself. Even though I wasn't sitting with him and holding his hand, I was grateful to be reunited and to watch him support his team from the sidelines.
We expressed our gratitude to the coaches for their help the night before and discussed briefly our son's road to recovery. We left for home with hope for the best and didn't leave room for the worst.
The following morning, I woke up with a different attitude and was discontent and stressed. All the emotions were settling in, and I couldn't contain them as I had hoped. I felt like I was in quicksand and quickly sinking. My thoughts were pulling me further away from positivity. One concern after another pulled me deeper into despair. This time, I wanted to cry out of anger and frustration. I know there are bigger fish to fry in this world, but this is my son, and I can recount what he went through to get to this point. There was a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, so processing another setback was disheartening.
Ironically, my sister texted that she was experiencing the same exasperating emotions as me. We volleyed our thoughts about how unfortunate all of this was. After we validated our sentiments, we imagined what my son was feeling and going through, which made me spiral down even faster.
We tried encouraging one another, but we both felt melancholy. We recognized God's hand and the miracles He performed but were still heartbroken it happened. It was like I had the accident on replay in the screen of my mind. All I could see was the accident and my son going through excruciating pain.
I had to get out of this trap. I reached for my Bible on my nightstand, ready to do my daily reading, when my Bible "accidentally" turned to Psalms 31. Every verse spoke directly to my spirit.
It was the exact encouragement I needed. I quickly texted my sister and alerted her to read it, too. I read and reread it several times, quickly returning me to solid ground. It pulled me out of the spiral of hopelessness. We reminded ourselves what God had already done, and then I told her we had to go in the opposite spirit of where the enemy was leading us. He was setting a snare for us to fall into, but we were not going to accept it. Even though we tiptoed around it, we shut the trap down. We would not allow our lips to complain or doubt. We thanked God for what He did and what He will do. We expressed our gratitude for all the people who assisted my son and for all the prayer warriors who interceded. My sister said, "We will be contagious and kill the enemy's attempts."
With that, I started praying for everyone I knew who needed prayer and sending encouraging texts to family and friends. We shifted our attitude and declared my son's suffering was not in vain. We shared my son's testimony with anyone who would listen.
I can't say the bait of satan disappeared because I had to constantly renew my mind and listen to God's truth over and over again. I didn't discuss it with anyone, but my heart was wrestling. Watching my son's goals for this year seem further from reach made me struggle. My husband's and my children's dreams will always rank higher and weigh heavier than mine, so this was extra challenging for me.
I know God is teaching me to keep my eyes focused on Him and to entrust my family to Him. What's noteworthy is I'm on my own journey, and developing my testimony alongside my son's.
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