Today concludes our first full week of school. While usually this is a time of returning to routines and settling in, this year has been anything but that. Instead of getting “back in the swing of things”, an actual swing has thrown our family off course in ways that I never knew a piece of playground equipment could.

As many of you already know, we had a little incident after the second day of school. It turns out that even when your mom repeatedly tells you “Quit jumping off _____(the top stair, the 2-story deck, the swing that is 12 feet in the air)”, sometimes you just have to test those limits yourself. Especially when you’re a 7-year old boy whose favorite sports include Parkour and Ninja Warriors.

On this particular night, the kids were playing in our backyard while I finished cooking dinner. Right as I was pulling food out of the oven David came running into the house crying because he had jumped off the swing and hurt his hand.

Put down the food.

Turn off the oven.

Comfort the crying child.

Get ice on the hurting hand.

Not 2 minutes later I hear another (this time, blood-curdling) scream coming from outside. This time it’s Jacob. He came running in the house saying that, you guessed it, he hurt his hand jumping off the swing.

Comfort the crying child.

Get ice on the hurting hand.

Realize immediately that this is more than a bump-and-bruise situation.

Now, I’m no medical expert, but I could tell this was bad. Really bad. Jacob was screaming any time I so much as touched his hand or arm, and he said it was hard to move his fingers. Uh-oh.

I called Jon at work and he advised me to forget about dinner (Yet another reason why I should just stop cooking dinner every night) and get Jacob right in to the hospital. So, I made Jacob a state-of-the-art splint out of an Amazon box and an Ace bandage, loaded three hungry children into the car (two of whom are still crying about their hurt hands), and drove the route I had memorized on the first day we moved into our house to the Emergency Room (Because with three active children I knew it would be a matter of when I would need to drive there, not if I would ever have to go).

Jon drove from work straight to the hospital and met us at the ER drop-off door, so it was simply a matter of rolling up in the minivan, sliding open the passenger door, and shuffling Jacob (along with his car seat and a backpack full of electronic devices and snacks) out the door to his waiting dad. Uber couldn’t have done it better.

After I dropped off Jacob at the hospital I headed home with the other kids, and that’s when it hit me: Mom Guilt. Rationally I know that there’s nothing I could have done to keep him from getting hurt, but what if there was? And now he’s hurt and there’s nothing I can do to help him feel better. And this is going to be a long haul, and how will we make it through? And what if the x-ray gives him radiation poisoning? And what if he gets cold in the ER because he’s only wearing shorts? And what if…

So that was a fun night.

As I went through the motions of feeding the other kids dinner, putting them to bed, going through school bags, and pacing the floor, I kept getting text updates from Jon. Finally, at about 2 hours past bedtime, we got the news that I was hoping and praying we wouldn’t get: Jacob had a non-displaced fracture of his radius or, as normal people like to say, he broke his arm.

The ER patched him up in a temporary arm cast and sent him home with a prescription for Children’s Tylenol (Seriously, that’s the best pain meds we can give to kids with a broken appendage?!) and advice to rest. I think Jacob got some sleep that night, but I’m pretty sure neither Jon nor I got a wink.

The next morning (a Friday, exactly a week ago today), Jacob woke up chipper and excited to go to school. I tried to convince him to stay home and rest, but he was insistent that he wanted to go because he didn’t want to miss anything (Oh, the enthusiasm of the first week of school!). So, he went to school and I hovered in the school parking lot most of the day.

Since then we’ve gone back to get Jacob’s official cast: a full-arm, up-to-his-shoulder, bright-red, no-nonsense, super cast. Jacob has an awesome Orthopedic doctor at Children’s Hospital–not only does he work with my sister (she’s a pediatric Physical Therapist there), but he also  has a child in kindergarten at the boys’ elementary school AND is a former collegiate wrestler (Jacob was getting tips for taking down his brother…for after he has use of both upper extremities, of course).

Now we’re looking at 4-6 weeks in the super-cast, and then another 6-8 weeks in a below-elbow cast after that. During this time he has to avoid all: balls, wheels, swings (ha!), slides, trampolines, water, climbing, jumping, and running…so basically everything he enjoys. And for the kicker, the broken arm is his dominant hand so he gets to learn how to do everything with a hand that he’s rarely used before.

Everything from putting on shoes to writing his name takes a ton of extra effort and energy, so it’s been an interesting learning curve. He’s tired and frustrated. He feels left out because he can’t play with his friends how he used to. He gets pain in the middle of the day and I have to drop everything and run to the school to give him Tylenol. He’s sad because he missed his first soccer game (And, at this point, will likely miss every other game this season). He can’t wear his coat because it won’t fit over his cast. His arm itches and he just has to deal with it. He, whose favorite past time is taking a long, hot shower until the hot water runs out, is not even allowed to take a shower. It’s a big bummer, no way around it.

And of course I, the mother, feel utterly helpless. I want to make it all better. I want my son to feel successful, not stuck. I want to take away his pain. I want to rewind to last Thursday and call him in to dinner five minutes earlier so this whole thing never happened.

But I can’t.

And maybe I should’t.

Suffering–terrible and unwanted as it is–is an assured part of life. Nobody, not one of us, is immune to suffering. Whether it be an all-consuming aspect of our lives or a relatively temporary inconvenience (Hello, broken arm!), suffering is a guaranteed part of the human story.

Suffering is so much a part of the human story that Jesus himself, God as human, suffered. Obediently, willingly, perfectly suffering:

“But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone. For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.” Hebrews 2:9-10

God redeemed all of humankind through suffering.

When we are at our breaking point, we are made perfect through our sufferings.

I don’t know how Jacob or our family will be made perfect through this ordeal, but I do know that we will be forever changed. How we view this change is up to us.

We will be made stronger because of the support we offer to one another.

We will be more attentive because we are made aware of the attention that needs to be given.

We will be more knowledgable because we are learning together.

We will be more resilient because, as always, we will make it through this. Together. Stronger. More perfectly like Him.

Imperfectly perfect.