God's Knitting

A week ago today, I received the shocking news that my brother had cut off his finger in a power saw while building a playground for Baby Boy.

Since then, many thoughts and prayers have run through my mind. It's funny how you never realize how important a finger is until you -- or someone you know -- loses one. It immediately becomes critically important.

Psalm 139 is one of my favorite chapters of the Bible, and it's one that has crossed my mind a lot this week while praying for the healing of the finger.

Verse 13 says, "...you knit me together in my mother's womb." I love the use of the word "knit" in this verse, and it especially seems fitting in this situation as I pray for God to knit my brother's finger back together every bit as perfectly as He knit it together the first time -- in our mother's womb.

It's a strange thought really, to go back in time 31 years ago and think about God creating that tiny finger that we are praying so fervently for now. He knew then that one day that finger was going to be severed from its hand. When He made it perfect, He knew His creation would one day be destroyed. And He created it perfectly anyway. (You know there's totally a lesson in that.)

The strange part of it is the realization that MY fingers -- and everything else about me -- were knit together in that same womb just four years previously. Of course that's a fact that we know in our heads, but is that anything you've ever truly thought about? That you were inside your mother's womb? That you and your siblings spent the first nine months of being within that same womb?

Anyhow -- I know that if He so chooses, He can knit the finger back together every bit as beautifully as He did the first time. And in the meantime, He's already done lots of wonderful things through this tragedy.

My brother had planned to change his health insurance last month to one with a much higher deductible, and which had a 40% copay instead of the 20% he currently had. He forgot to do it. Boy, is he glad now.

They always have a cookout for Baby Boy's birthday. Last Saturday morning, before he went to the store with the intent to buy everything they would need for the party, they made the decision to order pizza this year instead. Had they not, they would have had a gazillion burgers and hotdogs, and all the fixings in their refrigerator -- and my brother is now not able to grill. Boy, are they glad they went with pizza.

The surgeon only operates on Tuesdays. This past Tuesday, he was solidly booked all day. Next Tuesday he is booked, as well. And following that, he's going on vacation for two weeks. It could very easily have been over a month before he could do the surgery on my brother's finger and in that amount of time, the bone would have healed and they'd have had to rebreak it, and who knows what might have happened with the tendons, nerves, arteries, etc. Monday afternoon -- just before my brother went in to have the finger looked at -- an extensive surgery that would have lasted several hours was cancelled, therefore freeing up his schedule for most of the day, enabling him to do surgery on the finger three days after the accident instead of a month afterward.

Healing is already good. The surgeon was impressed with how quickly the skin was regenerating and growing back together, and is hopeful that a skin graft may not even be needed after all. He didn't need to put a pin in the bone, as first thought, he simply wired it -- a procedure that will be much less painful and invasive to remove than if a pin had been required. The artery that was severed did not need to be operated on because the remaining artery was supplying good bloodflow to the finger and it was pink -- this is excellent because the surgery to replace the artery was very risky and only had a 50% chance of being successful, and even if it was successful, could result in problems later on down the road. Despite the appearance of the tendons being severed, my brother is able to bend the finger -- that's nothing short of a miracle as the doctor has no idea how he's able to do it. And finally, although he was initially told he would have numbness and tingling permanently due to the nerve damage, the surgeon was able to take a nerve out of his wrist -- one that he said would slow reaction time a little but there are other nerves to do the job and as it's his left hand it will be barely noticeable to him -- and put it in his finger. It's not yet known if that will be successful and restore normal sensation in the finger.

So we continue to pray that God will knit each and every part of the finger back to its original condition, and thank Him for all the answers He's already given.