Fears and Tears

My heart feels many things: joy, sorrow, happiness, fear, peace, love. It is the center of my being, and beats a rhythm of life. Like the breath of my lungs, the heart works to sustain life, most of the time unnoticed.

Yesterday, we received news that our son had gotten into a skateboarding accident. He took a bad fall and broke both his arms, and was scraped up. This happened at sundown, but we received the call early the next morning.

All of the sudden, my heart was beating fast and I noticed my breath. I was having a hard time processing my thoughts to what I was hearing. I couldn’t think and I cried, not knowing how bad he was injured. He lived a couple of hours away from us, and I just wanted to be there.

As he grows up, I realize I can’t always be there when unexpected things happen. I wasn’t there that night, but his friends were. They got him the help he needed, and never left his side. He is blessed with caring and wonderful friends.

My husband and I cleared out schedules for the day so we could go see him. We knew with his injuries and surgery that he would need, we would have to bring him home for awhile. When I saw him, my heart was relieved, yet ached at the same time for the pain he was in. He was scraped up on his shoulder, hands and knees. He had one arm in a cast in a sling, with the other arm in a sling as well. He looked tired, but was in good spirits and had a smile on his face when he saw us.

His injuries would make even the simplest of tasks difficult without help. I couldn’t help to think of what this meant for his summer plans and his job prospects as he was newly graduated from college. But I knew that we would take one day at a time and things would work out.

Before we had left to go get him, I sent out a prayer petition on our church’s prayer chain. I am very grateful for everyone who prayed for him, I know the peace I felt was because of all the prayers from our church community. It was also heartwarming to see all the texts my son got on his phone, from the message he put out there on his social media account. We made the calls to our extended family to let them know what was going on, and are also grateful to all their love and support across the miles.

Our son is healthy and strong, and will recover from this, but it will take time, patience and rest. It is not how he expected to spend his summer, but such is life, it is never what we expect. He is surrounded by his siblings here, and it brings joy to my heart to see them spend time with each other. They have become close friends as they grow up and mature.

I am thankful for my heart, as it reminds me what it means to love another, it is written in my soul, the center of my being, and it shows me the beauty of life. That I am made to love and be loved, and it sets my heart at peace.

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential in invisible to the eye. Antoine de Saint-Exupery, French aviator, writer and poet.