Positive

June 26. It's a Friday. The two-week anniversary of my Fabulous Femur Fracture. Happy Anniversary?!? I had an appointment with the surgeon who put the railroad spike--I mean, "femur nail"- into my leg. To help me recover from my Fabulous Femur Fracture. Calvin the rehab center driver wheels me in my wheelchair, up the ramp of the van. I feel like a package being loaded on the UPS truck. When I get to the doctor's office, my Sweetie meets me. In we go. X-rays. But first, they gotta take the staples out. Ouch! X-rays. "Can you twist your leg this way? Are you kidding??!!" The surgeon shows us the X-ray. It's a bad break. There's a hunk of bone, just floating there by itself in my leg. When I do it, I do it right! Seeing how bad the break is stirs up all the emotions of that morning two weeks before. The shock. The fear. The "this can't be happening!" When Calvin loads me back in the van, I'm feeling pretty down. When I get back to rehab, I just want to go back to my room and have a little cry. The accident happened so fast, and it's gonna take so LONG to recover. I just want to go back to my room and have a little cry. Tears are one of the best prayers there is. Psalm 56:8--"You have collected all my tears in Your bottle." But when I get back to rehab, somebody grabs my wheelchair and wheels me away. "Time for rehab!" In the rehab gym, everybody is being Positive. In America, you HAVE to be Positive. That's the rule. Everybody is "Fine." That's the rule. So, everybody in the rehab gym is Positive. Except me. Looking at everybody being Positive, I'm feeling, "I don't belong here. I'm NOT fine!" Eventually, I did get to go back to my room. And have a little cry, with the Lord. Look, I get it. We're all supposed to be Positive. That's the rule. If you have some struggle, some heartbreak, some disappointment, you're supposed to keep it hidden. I HAVE to keep my heartache hidden. Because I'm ashamed I'm not fine. Here's a little secret. Here's how many times in the Bible the word, "Positive," is used: _______________. Yup, "Positive" is used in the Bible zero times. So, how about this one instead----"tenderhearted." Ephesians 4:32--"Be kind to one another, tenderhearted....." You know, maybe some of the people you will see today are NOT fine. Maybe they're dealing with heartache. The occupational therapist tells me about the drunk driver who killed her father and stepmother and gave her a traumatic brain injury when she was a kid. When will she get over that? The hairdresser at the rehab giving me a haircut talks about her son with cystic fibrosis. He had a double lung transplant. Then he was in a car accident. The trauma of the accident causes his body to reject the transplant. He dies. When will she get over that?

I don't know what heartaches the people around me might be dealing with. Rather than being Positive, my goal today is, Tenderhearted. Maybe somebody I meet is gonna need me to listen. While they share a heartache.