Two days before Christmas, my two year old daughter broke her ankle. She was sitting on the second of two porch steps with her feet resting on the bottom one. Both my wife and I were occupied by our other two children, and when we heard screaming and saw her laying flat on her face on the ground, I expected something like a scraped forehead or a busted lip. But after swelling and bruising of her ankle and her refusal to walk the next few days, my wife eventually took her to get x-rays. Two breaks. My wife accompanied her as she was fitted with a cast and we were told that she would have three weeks for it to come off, but after that, she should be as good as new.
Two days before the end of the Christmas season, my eight year old son gashed his forehead open. He was at his friend’s house, and they were running around as boys do. At one point my son fell into the corner of a halfwall that separated the kitchen from the living room. We got a phone call from his friend’s mom, and I went right away. He and I went to urgent care and then were sent to the ER. Finally, after hours of seeking medical attention, I watched as he received three stitches to seal the wound above his right eye that would be removed five days later.
For both my wife and I, each injury caused us varying amounts of fear and stress. We wanted to deliver our children from their pain as soon as possible. And once we got treatment and were notified the amount of time each injury would take to heal, it gave us some relief. But then we had to wait for their bodies to work on their own time.
It was not lost on me as we transitioned from the Christmas season to Ordinary Time that this is how God has chosen to form us into His sons and daughters. We are a people broken from our sin and in need of healing. Jesus comes to give us that aid during the Christmas Season. He is the diagnosis and the treatment for our sins. He comes to us and gives us the peace of mind to know that healing is here. But that healing takes time. And that time is spent with us for thirty-three years as His presence heals the human race, and continues as Jesus remains sacramentally present in His Church.
The injuries of my children have become a parable to my family on how God has loved us. At Christmas, He came to us in our brokenness to be Emmanuel – God with us. But then after that excitement wears off, he continues to stay with us in the healing process. This is Ordinary Time: knowing that God is with us, and together we have set up a rhythm of life to heal with His assistance in His love. So as we prepare for the Lenten season coming up, let us not look past this season of Ordinary Time. It is meant to be a season in which God can work in an ordinary way, and often, that is when most of our healing takes place.