Resilient

 

I don't always pick a word of the year, but I have off and on over the past few years. Sometimes I don't give them much thought and sometimes I don't even remember what word I've picked by the end of the year. For 2026, my word of the year is "resilient."

"resilient adjective : characterized or marked by resilience: such as

    a. : capable of withstanding shock without permanent deformation or rupture

    b : tending to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change
          as defined by Merriam-Webster

With the way the year started out, I think I will remember this one. I went out for a solo run on Monday. I was running on a narrow road with cars parked on either side and since it was dark, I thought it would be a good idea to get up on the sidewalk in case a car came. I do run with my Noxgear lights, but sometimes it's still hard for oncoming cars to see me hidden behind the parked cars.  As I stepped up on the sidewalk, I was reminding myself of the dips and to make sure I pick up my feet. As soon as that thought crossed my mind, I found myself falling forward. I stretched out my hands and all of my weight landed on my right hand. My immediate thought was "Crap, crap, crap!"

I rolled over, sat up on the sidewalk and did a quick assessment realizing that the only body part that hurt was my right hand. (Thank God no knees were affected!) I managed to get my phone out of my jacket pocket, called my husband and said "I think I may have just broke my wrist. I may be being overly dramatic, but can you please come pick me up?" I could tell right away, through my glove, that my hand was swollen and also realized almost immediately that it was not my wrist, but something definitely was not right with my fingers and the palm of my hand. After a trip to the ER, it was confirmed that I broke and displaced my fourth and fifth metacarpal, near the base. A separate trip to the Orthopedic Group on Wednesday confirmed the bad news that I would need surgery to set the bones back into place. Surgery was completed Friday. All went well and I am ready to begin the healing process.

I was thinking about the timing. I just started volunteering for a local nonprofit, pro-life organization by cleaning their office, my husband and I own a cleaning business where we do a lot of the work ourselves and if one of us are unable to work a certain day, the other person takes over.  I also felt that I was making progress in my running by being consistent. As stated in my last blog, I was starting to determine what goals I would set for this year. Now all of that is put on hold as there are pins in my hand, holding the bones in place. How smart would it be to run and take the chance of jarring them out of position? My first reaction was to be mad at myself and question "Why?", but sometimes accidents just happen.

This may sound made up, but I promise it is true. I changed my lock screen wallpaper to the following verse on January 1st as a reminder to be resilient. "When you walk, your steps will not be hindered; when you run, you will not stumble" Proverbs 4:12 (CSB) When I got my phone out of my pocket Monday morning to call my husband, I thought, "Okay, God, that's funny!" This chapter in Proverbs goes on to say that we are to "hold on to instruction," "keep off the path of the wicked...avoid it; don't travel on it." As I will have much time in the next few weeks, I pray to be open to God's instruction. How can I make the best use of this downtime? What scripture can I focus on to easily adjust to this misfortune and "roll with it" which if I had done in the first place, I may not be in this predicament. (wink, wink)