healing hands and the ides of May

March supposedly has ides.  I'm not sure what they are, but this May has been something.  I can't quite find the perfect word for it.  I'd like it to end, but I know we need to get through it all, so wanting it over isn't quite helpful when the process is as much a part of the finish line as the end itself.

Sigh.

Gillette Children's Hospital.  10am-12pm.  Emma Kate and me.

We went in with one cast and one wrap and came out with one cast and one sort of wrap.

Her fingers on her left hand look marvelous.  Truly marvelous.

Emma, however, begs to differ.  Healing isn't always pretty, and stitches and scars take time to fade.

Teary eyes met mine.

"Mom, I look creepy".

I so wish I could just take her heartache and hold it in my heart.  That hers would simply go away.  But that kind of framing is going to need to be hers.  A part of Emma's journey is going to be learning to decide what it means to like who she is and how she was hand-crafted by the King of Kings who does, indeed, do all things well.

"We did this surgery so your hands would look more normal" her surgeon gently shared.

And I flame mad.  Inside.

Her hands ARE normal, and they do look normal.  Whose to say what normal is, and our society has so many problems, issues and idols with that term.  The desire to be so "normal" and look just like everyone else makes us creatures of the abnormal in Kingdom terms.

Every society struggles with "normal" in one way or another when we make agreements with what beautiful is.  Bound feet, breast augmentation, liposuction, a tan, pale skin, long necks, elongated earlobes.  It is so easy to look at another culture's idea of beauty and see the idol for what it is.  It is harder to see our own.

And layer on the rainbow of differences with which the Lord made us, and watch the wrestling match grow.  In my heart, too.

And thusly a verbal wrestling match ensues, wherein I gently reframe that statement for Emma, whose eyes are now huge with horror that a doctor just told her that her hands were not normal before.

(And note to readers, we like this doctor's work immensely.  She has been nothing but kind to Emma.  No bashing of her, please.  This is simply differences of worldview playing out in real life, and a doctor thinking she is giving our daughter permission to have real feelings about her hands.  We agree on one level and hold a tremendously different view altogether on another level.  Our doctor thinks, I'm sure, that we are loons, too.  She almost fell off her stool when I said that God made Emma with respect and wonder when He crafted her.).

"Emma, you are not creepy.  You might think the stitches look creepy, but that is different than saying you are creepy.  You are not creepy, you are a lovely, beautiful, darling little girl," says me, her mom.

May I add a, "thus sayeth the Lord".  AMEN?  Amen.

I'm weary.

That's an aside.  My heart hurts for Emma, and the place she is navigating as a seven year old.  I know this is all a part of how the Lord will use how He made her for GOOD.  For hope.  For her future.  And yet there is simply that tender momma place that aches for my daughter's sadness.

Peanut butter and jelly in the car on the way home was a welcome distraction and treat for my beauty-girl.

Next up, Nurse Nightingale is meant to soak her hand in warm water and work the stitches out and off with a wash cloth.

Help me.  I think I'm waiting for tonight when Jim is home.  Puddle of tears it would be this afternoon.

So my synopsis of today would be: weary mom and sad girl held securely in the hands of a faithful Father God who meets our very real needs of fragile feelings and tired hearts.

He is faithful.  He is always faithful.