When An Ankle Fracture Offers Rest

Last night, I spent a couple of hours in the ER with my youngest child, who is a competitive gymnast. She is 12.

Her right ankle was the size of a ping pong ball, tender to the touch. No bruises. She had been at her regular Thursday afternoon gymnastics practice, and she was just warming up with a few other girls on her team on a trampoline.

There were too many girls on the trampoline. My daughter landed unsteady and heard a crack.

I rushed, holding my just-purchased hot club sandwich from Ingles, to pick up my son from his afternoon workout and then to get my daughter.

My husband was feverish and achy. I was going to have to do this one by myself.

I made my way into the gym and my daughter’s lower lip began quivering as soon as she saw me.

“It’s okay, baby. It’s okay. I’m going to pick you up. Hold on to me.”

She buried her face in my chest, shielding her teary eyes from watching parents.

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Today, we got the news that she did have a small hairline fracture in her ankle. She’ll be in a hard cast, sky blue, for two weeks, and a splint for another four.

Six weeks. That means that competition season is over for her this year.

Bella participated in one gymnastics meet this year. The first one was cancelled due to icy road conditions. The second one was a couple of weeks ago.

She didn’t do as well as she had hoped, placing 5th on beam and 6th all around in her age category. The other girls who were on stage proudly accepted their medals, and Bella fought back tears.

She wanted to do better.

She wanted . . . well, perfect. On her first try. Her first meet, ever.

And perfect isn’t what happened.

And now, two weeks to the day from competition, she gets the news that her ankle will keep her from competing.

She is relieved, actually. So am I.

My girl has been training for competition for 8 months. The summer workouts were 7 hours, 7 hours, and 4 hours long. She has a natural gifting for gymnastics, graceful when she performs. Her beam routine is deliberate and steady, a kinetic work of art in motion.

She was made for this sport—and yet—the perfection she seeks remains out of grasp.

Is she seeking the approval of the man in the shadows who will never attend a single meet?

The approval of the man who left?

She says that she’s “over” her father’s suicide, that she doesn’t think about the man she calls Daddy. She’s been in therapy, off and on, since 2020.

The truth is, her own wound of abandonment runs very, very deep, in the rock-hard basement of her soul.

Her biological father left the planet when she was 7 years old, and her brother was 10. Sometimes, when I think about my daughter’s desire to prove her own worth, and I know it’s tied to her father, I hate him.

I hate him because some days I see the damage he inflicted on his children. The pain he endured in life did not disappear after his death; it merely transferred to his children. He had no desire to open the door to his own rock-hard basement.

And yet—I have to leave my hatred of him in the past. I can’t allow my hate to poison my present.

How do I communicate to my lovely, precocious, 35-year-old in a 12-year-old body, sassy pants, creative, beautiful, kind, caring, baby that she can lay down her burden of perfectionism? That she doesn’t have to prove her value?

I want to tell her to take her burden to Jesus, and yet . . . I can’t tell her directly, not like that.

“Mom, don’t tell me to take it God. I know that. I’m working on it.”

“Mom, no offense . . . but please don’t tell me about how God is the answer here.”

So, I wait, and I pray. I ask for an open door. I ask for the right words. I ask Jesus to live His life through me, through my own imperfections. I ask for His love, His ability to love, His ability to show mercy.

My imperfections, clothed in weakness, offered to God in matters I can’t do anything about.

Meanwhile, her stepdad and I help her remember that she is worth so much more than a 9.225 on floor.

He and I ask for the grace to love her well.

My husband, Kevin, loves our girl. He’s the one that Bella really prefers to ride with to gymnastics. His peaceful, loving demeanor calms her down when she’s had a hard practice. He listens and doesn’t offer correction or advice at first. He knows she just needs to get it out. He says that she’s better after she’s allowed to vent. Bella loves him and trusts him.

This in itself is a miracle.

God is answering my prayers, one at a time, and sometimes all at once. There are times where I don’t ask Him for what I really need, out of some ancient, wounded place in my own basement, and He gives me what I need anyway.

I need rest, and six weeks of no pressure from competition helps a lot.

Thank you, Jesus, for using everything for our good, and for loving Bella more than she can fathom. Give her the ability to feel Your love for her.

Amen.