Holding Onto Faith: Choosing to Trust

I’ve often heard people say they are thankful for hardship because it deepened their faith. Last fall, I wouldn’t have said that.

In the first post of this series, I simply told the story. In the second post, I shared some of the quieter aftermath — the lack of words, the pulling back, and the slow realization that I needed to bring my emotions to God instead of holding them in.

Now, looking back, I can see how God was strengthening something in me I didn’t even realize was weak.

This final post is about what He taught me in the process. I’ll reference parts of the injury and recovery, but gently.

Lean Into Laughter

At times, all I could do was laugh. The opposite was tears, and I was tired of those. Laughter truly is some of the best medicine.

The night of the accident, I will never forget running around the house and into the shop to find materials Jason could remake his temporary splint with. I’m pretty sure my eyes bulged when he first told me his plan. The splint dried in a way that left his wrist bent in a very uncomfortable, painful position.

I didn’t want him to be uncomfortable, but I was also exhausted, and adrenaline was still surging. I just wanted to sit down and try to process what the injuries meant. Instead, I was grabbing paint sticks, wood toy blocks, foam, and super glue. Have I mentioned he has a machinist background? Lol

At some point, I started laughing over the absurdity of it all and felt better.

The removable pins in his finger looked like big white bug eyes sticking out of his hand. It was unnerving at first, but with six weeks to go, we needed to adapt. After Jason made the first joke about them, it broke the ice for us to feel more relaxed in talking about the pins.

There were several points throughout where we just laughed about things. And maybe it wasn’t even about the accident, but about the kids doing something funny, or turning some issue with the house into a joke, perhaps even telling ourselves we would look back on this one day with humor or appreciate the unexpected way God chose to get our attention.

When you don’t know what else to do,  just try laughing. 

Healing Takes Time

Obviously physical healing of the injury takes time. However, the mental/emotional injury takes time to heal as well. In some cases, this may take even longer than the physical aspect. 

I can’t speak for Jason, but I can tell you I was a mess the first several weeks. The day after the accident, there was more tree trimming to do before equipment was returned. As helpers made the first pull of the chainsaw, I almost lost my breakfast. It was too much, too soon, and yet I knew it needed to be done.

It was very hard to get my body to re-regulate. I physically felt a tension, similar to an adrenaline rush, for a long time. It left me tired, snappy, and stressed.

When the removable pins got infected and the antibiotics made Jason sick, it was like my body started processing the initial injury all over again. Just after the soft cast was removed, I felt all sorts of unpleasantness over the visual reminders he would always have. 

During therapy the progress seemed slow, and I became nervous. His hand was still swollen a month later and nothing seemed to help reduce it permanently. It was a relief to discover a possible cause, (Some of the flesh on the biggest laceration was too mangled to use. This meant the surrounding skin had to be pulled unnaturally tight to close.) We were grateful to know how to work with it, but I’ll admit, it made me squeamish to massage the scar tissue at first.

As December approached, I could feel my body was holding onto things. Even though the pins had been removed, stitches were gone, and skin was healing, something inside me was hanging on.

I was reminded of something I learned years ago in Bessel Van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score — that our bodies hold onto trauma in all sorts of fascinating and frustrating ways.

So, I began to pray that God would help release whatever was needed.

Trauma: Big T, Little t

As I waited to see how God would work, I reminded myself it was ok to call what I was experiencing trauma. I didn’t at first, because it felt dramatic and silly.

I recently read a description of trauma that made a lot of sense to me. No, he didn’t lose his hand, he didn’t die, he didn’t spend weeks in the hospital – those could be considered Trauma with a big “T”. 

However, that doesn’t negate that what happened was still a huge event for him, for me, our kids, that our lives were altered, and that my body was struggling to process – those could be called trauma with a little “t”.

We don’t always get to choose how our body responds to stress. God answered my prayer of release in a few different ways.

I have always been a visual person. One thing I struggled with specifically, was vivid recalls of certain moments flashing before my eyes.

As I was getting ready one morning, pictures of Jason stumbling through the field kept surfacing. My body reacted just as it had the night of the accident — but it ended with dry heaving. Although I found this unusual, I felt emotionally lighter, and it hasn’t happened since.

Another morning I was reading my Christmas Advent devotional. It had beautiful watercolor artwork throughout. This particular day the artwork was dark red peonies. My mind automatically flashed to the crimson stains on clothing and towels that shouldn’t have been. I sat in the chair with tears streaming down my face for a couple of minutes. Again, it felt unusual, but I felt another level of lightness.

I thought I was doing pretty good until I decided to share some of this story and sat down to write. My entire body tensed, hands felt shaky, stomach turned, it was like a small current of energy thrummed through my body. 

It was then I knew putting this on paper would also be part of my healing process. And it has been. Each time I’ve sat down to write, those physical feelings have abated. The visual slideshows have significantly decreased and I feel more at peace.

Trust Is a Choice

Perhaps the biggest thing God revealed to me in all of this, was that I needed to make a choice. I could continue to question and doubt and spiral, or I could toss those thoughts aside, and choose to trust Him.

For me, that was hard.

On many levels, I knew I needed to lean into my faith. But man was that difficult.

For a couple months, it felt like things just kept falling further apart. Despite my prayers, the prayers of others, and the work put forth. 

Somedays, I actually asked God if He was still for us. 

Deep down, I knew the answer. Of course He was. Many times throughout the Bible we’re reminded God will never leave us or forsake us. 

And so, I had to constantly make a choice. 

Would I choose to trust God, His plan, His timing? Or would I choose to muster through on my own fleeting strength? 

Let me tell you, the latter just led to a deeper, darker pit.

I had to bring myself to a place of truly surrendering any outcome and letting go of any semblance of control to fully trust God.

Was it scary at times? For sure! But there was also this sweet sense of comfort.

Even when it makes the least sense and requires great effort, choosing to trust God has always brought me closer to Him.

Friends, thank you for being here and allowing me further healing by sharing this story with you. I hope something here has been helpful for you.

I continue to be amazed at God’s grace and provision as we keep taking small steps forward. 

Life looks different, but in a good way. God knew what Jason and I needed, and while the circumstances were not what I would have chosen, I am thankful, because I have definitely grown closer to the Lord through it all.