{"id":331,"date":"2018-09-28T11:20:17","date_gmt":"2018-09-28T16:20:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jared-kresge\/?p=331"},"modified":"2018-09-28T11:29:32","modified_gmt":"2018-09-28T16:29:32","slug":"beauty-for-ashes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jared-kresge\/2018\/09\/28\/beauty-for-ashes\/","title":{"rendered":"Beauty for Ashes"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Ivan<\/p>\n

\u201cMom\u2026Mom?\u201d<\/p>\n

My last-minute preparations for a Friday-night dinner with friends were interrupted by Ivan\u2019s uncertain voice as he thrust his left hand over the kitchen sink in front of me.\u00a0 Although it took a few moments to realize the severity of his injury, I knew at once that his fourth finger had experienced some trauma.<\/p>\n

I called for Jared with growing intensity as blood dripped into the kitchen sink and I realized that the tip of Ivan\u2019s finger was missing underneath an empty fingernail.<\/p>\n

The next several minutes were a blur of activity as we bandaged the wound with gauze, put the severed fingertip in a plastic bag, greeted our dinner guests (and excused ourselves), paid for pizza that was being delivered, and left for a local emergency room.\u00a0 All the time a feeling was growing inside me\u2026Not again.\u00a0 Why us?\u00a0 Why now?\u00a0 What next?\u00a0 Haven\u2019t we already been through enough?\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Our local hospital was unable to treat the wound and transferred us to another general hospital in a larger city, 1.5 hours away.\u00a0 We arranged transportation and made our way uncertainly to the recommended location.\u00a0 Over the next few hours our minds were filled with doubts, wondering what was the wisest course of action in this situation that required fast response.\u00a0 Visions of infection, further trauma, a life-long \u201cdisability\u201d that could hinder Ivan\u2019s participation in certain activities like playing guitar, sports\u2026all this consumed my thoughts as we drove and prayed and tried ineffectively to contact the hospital we were headed for.<\/p>\n

Irritation welled up in me, too.\u00a0\u00a0What kind of place is this where you can\u2019t arrange immediate medical attention for a severe injury?\u00a0 This never would have happened back home,<\/em>\u00a0I unjustly thought.\u00a0 I began yearning for my home country, where accidents never happen.\u00a0 I knew I was being irrational.\u00a0 Practically every traumatic event we have experienced in the past few months has been something that could easily have happened anywhere in the world.\u00a0 My frustration came from the stress of dealing with these situations in an environment that is still quite foreign to me.\u00a0 Worrying that I may not be able to understand the doctor\u2019s instructions as he spoke from beneath his surgical mask.\u00a0 Wondering if the sanitation would be up to par in the operating room.\u00a0 If I could trust the prescriptions and follow-up care.<\/p>\n

As we unloaded ourselves from the vehicle and walked into the emergency room of a large city, my thoughts were immediately rebuked.\u00a0 Here before me was human suffering in tangible form.\u00a0 The bustling hospital was crowded with people in pain.\u00a0 There was a slender boy of about 15 who had suffered a motorbike accident, lying alone, bruised and crooked on a gurney.\u00a0 Around the corner an old woman lay on a bed, struggling to breathe, while her wrinkled husband muttered pleading prayers with eyes squeezed shut and palms lifted upward. A team of doctors and nurses worked on an elderly man with a tracheostomy tube who was soon rushed into the resuscitation room followed by his wife, who kissed him gently and wiped his grey, sweaty brow before stepping back in tears.<\/p>\n

\"Ivan<\/p>\n

With these vivid images before my eyes, shame swept over me as I considered how minuscule our plight truly was.\u00a0 Ivan had walked into the hospital on his own two feet, gingerly holding his bandaged finger aloft and grinning a little when he considered that he could later brag about his experience to his older brother.\u00a0 And yet, despite small smiles of bravado, my heart was aching and crying out for relief from worry and fear and trauma and sleeplessness\u2026by now I was familiar enough with the round of emotions involved in an accident and already dreaded the bad dreams and the stress of wound care to follow.<\/p>\n

But God still cares.\u00a0 Even when our situation is minor in comparison to (fill in the blank), He cares.\u00a0 For me, His love was evident in Jared\u2019s silent, reassuring hand-clasp on the way to the hospital.\u00a0 In the ER doctor\u2019s self-assured handling of the situation and confident cutting and stitching and issuing orders.\u00a0 In the sacrifice of neighbor-friends who stayed on watch till the wee hours while our other sons slept peacefully at home.\u00a0 In the tear-filled eyes of our helper lady as she hugged Ivan the next morning and shouldered some of my heartache for me.<\/p>\n

\"Ivan<\/p>\n

And God heals.\u00a0 Ivan\u2019s swift healing has amazed us all, and we give the thanks to God.\u00a0 His finger is a bit stubbier than before, but three weeks later, all that remains of the injury is a small scab, fresh pink skin, and a missing fingernail.<\/p>\n

\"Ivan<\/p>\n

God heals hearts, too, and this is a process which may take a bit longer than three or four weeks.\u00a0 He is urging me gently to let go, surrender, and trust that He\u2019s got this thing we call life.\u00a0 He cares more deeply than I can imagine, but He doesn\u2019t promise to orchestrate my family\u2019s journey through life according to what I think best.\u00a0 He\u2019s writing my story\u2013your story\u2013OUR story to be an epic which, whether through laughter or tears, points inescapably back to His faithfulness and love.\u00a0 And one day He will redeem every tear with diamonds of joy and exchange our meager hours of suffering with unblemished eternity.<\/p>\n

\"Ivan\"<\/p>\n

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\u201cMom\u2026Mom?\u201d My last-minute preparations for a Friday-night dinner with friends were interrupted by Ivan\u2019s uncertain voice as he thrust his left hand over the kitchen sink in front of me.\u00a0 Although it took a few moments to realize the severity of his injury, I knew at once that his fourth finger had experienced some trauma. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1082,"featured_media":332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[448],"class_list":{"0":"post-331","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-ethnos360","9":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jared-kresge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jared-kresge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jared-kresge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jared-kresge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1082"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jared-kresge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jared-kresge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jared-kresge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jared-kresge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jared-kresge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jared-kresge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}