Fr Robert Hendrickson

Dear Friends in Christ,

Our youngest broke his arm this week. He told us he hurt it but didn’t let on how much it hurt. He did a little bit of guarding it while praying catch. He did a handstand on it. He did lots of his normal activities.

We noticed he was not using it much and we asked him a number of times if it hurt. We checked for swelling. No bruising. We touched and prodded and asked if this hurt or that hurt when it was pushed.

Finally, he fell down and landed on it again. This time he really could not hide that it hurt.

So we made the appointment with the doctor. He really did not want to go. In fact, he’d been telling us all week that nothing was wrong so he wouldn’t have to go to the doctor. But we went anyway. The whole time on the way there he asked if they were going to need to use needles — that worries him a great deal.

But we went. He got an x-ray. It was broken.

We told him he would have to get a cast. He wasn’t thrilled but perked up when told he could get a red cast.

He got his red cast and was smiling by the end of the doctor visit.

All of that denial of pain could have made things so much worse. If we’d continued to ignore it, it could have been so much worse.

Many of us will go through some of our hardest times denying the pain. Until we fall and can’t pretend anymore.

Many of us also will perhaps notice someone flinching from a touch or guarding themselves a bit more.

I guess all of this is to say that this is part of what church is for — to bear one another’s burdens. To have a place where we don’t need to pretend the hurt isn’t there — and where we can be attentive, patient friends who see when there’s a little too much pain to hide.

On the other side of it things are so often much better than we fear. This is especially true when we have someone to walk alongside us — someone to let us know that we might get a red cast too.

Yours in Christ,

Fr Robert