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<\/div>\nIt\u2019s been three weeks since I wrote, and my only excuse is that my son got a puncture wound from a car wreck he was in<\/a>, which led to sepsis, two surgeries, and IV antibiotics for six weeks. Oral antibiotics for another four. Surgery #3 is tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon. So again, I may be gone for a while. Or, if all goes well and there\u2019s nothing to do but stare at his huge, splinted thumb, perhaps I\u2019ll be online, sharing my long, skinny thoughts. Just depends! Thank you for your patience, because I know most of my readers have just been dying<\/em> for me to write a blog. I\u2019m that<\/em> popular, people.<\/p>\n Heh.<\/p>\n Seriously, though. Our man cub will be getting a skin graft tomorrow. I\u2019m so looking forward to less gruesome bandage changes (for me), and a thumb with skin (for him). How annoying and painful it must be to be skinned alive, down to he bone and tendon, on a part of your body that is used so frequently. Weeks of healing time have passed, and still no skin to be seen. However, there\u2019s some very healthy granulation tissue forming, which is great because it makes a skin graft possible. In many ways, he is very much akin to a burn victim. Hence the graft. And as you may or may not know, skin grafts have the ability to be a great help \u2013 if they take. So we are praying it does indeed \u201ctake\u201d, and that the part of the thumb being stubborn and refusing to grow granulation tissue will fully heal after the surgeon \u201ccleans it up\u201d \u2013 aka \u201cscrapes out the parts that refuse to heal.\u201d<\/p>\n <green emoji, green emoji, green emoji><\/p>\n Interestingly enough, an email titled \u201cThe Graft\u201d was delivered to my inbox recently. Joni Eareckson Tada<\/a> wrote it, and it encouraged and helped me focus on the fact that while my son is getting a physical graft, he is also getting a spiritual graft. Please pray with us that he heals physically, emotionally, and spiritually. We all need spiritual grafting and healing, but the man cub is in particularly great need as of late. Without wounding, there is no saving, and it\u2019s hard as a parent to stand by and watch that wounding. I fervently pray his physical graft would take. I pray even more fervently that his spiritual graft would take \u2026 for I am weary of watching the wounding, and am utterly desperate for the saving.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not to say I don\u2019t believe my son is a Christian. It\u2019s to say that all Christians have been saved (justified), are being saved (sanctified), and will be saved (glorified). And it\u2019s that long and arduous process of sanctification that I am lamenting over today. It\u2019s often a difficult and painful personal experience. It\u2019s often a\u00a0more<\/i> difficult and painful to watch a loved one experience it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n And yet I also rejoice, knowing that He who began a good work in us will continue it until the day of Jesus Christ. (Phil. 1:6)<\/p>\n I\u2019ll be back here as soon as circumstances allow. Here\u2019s Joni, with words more eloquent than I could ever pen:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n As a child, I remember early spring and grafting time in my Uncle Don\u2019s apple orchard. My uncle would run his hand over the bark of the apple tree, finding just the right place to peel it away and make a slanting cut into the heart of the wood. He would then take a small branch, make a cut in the tree, and push the graft down into the damp wood of the tree. Later that spring, new life would emerge: blossoms to buds to fruit. I\u2019ve heard that one tree can bear over one hundred different kinds of apples. But it does not come without a wounding in both tree and branch.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Years later I would understand John Bunyan\u2019s words: \u201cConversion is not the smooth, easy-going process some men seem to think\u2026. It is wounding work, this breaking of the hearts, but without wounding there is no saving. Where there is grafting there is a cutting, the graft must be let in with a wound\u2026Heart must be set to heart\u2026or there will be no sap from root to branch.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Never would I have dreamed as I wandered through that orchard as a little girl, sensing the Spirit\u2019s promptings to draw nearer, that my journey to know God would be filled with such cutting and wounding. The diving accident in which I became paralyzed was yet in the future, but it would force my wound to His wound, my heart to His heart. Years later I would understand the lesson of the graft: the wounding is where divine sap flows and spiritual fruit blossoms.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In affliction and suffering, our hearts are pressed into His. And the life of God flows into us, wound to wound. In those times of brokenness, remember that in Christ, the result is life, life, and more life.<\/p>\n Help me, Lord, to remain, to abide in You this day, no matter what my circumstances.<\/em><\/p>\n **Photo by Aleyna Rentz<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n It\u2019s been three weeks since I wrote, and my only excuse is that my son got a puncture wound from a car wreck he was in, which led to sepsis, two surgeries, and IV antibiotics for six weeks. Oral antibiotics for another four. Surgery #3 is tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon. So again, I may be gone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2920,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[240,703,21,697,700,157,164],"class_list":["post-2212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-affliction","tag-brokenness","tag-chronic-illness","tag-grafts","tag-physical-suffering","tag-suffering","tag-surgery"],"yoast_head":"\n