The Difference a Day Makes

What a difference a day makes.

In my last post, nearly a week ago, I talked about making Spring plans.

On Tuesday, one day after posting that, my spring plans were severely interrupted.

On Tuesday evening my son fell from a friend's zip-line and smacked face-first into the steel frame of a trampoline. The impact fractured his upper palate in several places, knocked out several teeth and pushed others way out of place. He also got a cut above his eye that required 9 stitches.

Within minutes of seeing what happened to him, I passed out cold and hit my head on a hard floor - leaving two goose-egg bumps that are now bruises. To say I don't handle blood, cuts or medical trauma well is accurate an understatement.

I'd started writing my life plan, writing some devotions, and prepping for some upcoming speaking engagements last week. In addition to finishing those, I'd planned on cleaning out some closets, decluttering, and doing a little deep cleaning. Instead I've been in ER rooms, dentist's offices, oral surgeons offices and on my knees.

I am happy to say Caleb came through the oral surgery well on Friday. But we still have a long dental-treatment road ahead of us. To those of you who heard about his accident and prayed for us ... many, many thanks.

To those of you willing to pause and pray today - for continued restoration, for healthy teeth and roots, for no tooth discoloration, and for wisdom on how to proceed from here - many, many thanks.

So my new spring plans are to nurse my baby back to health as best I can. He is on an all liquid diet for the next few weeks - that alone is throwing me for a bit of a loop. (Please send your best soup recipes!)

I feel a lot stirring in me, underground. But I have no poignant points to make right now other than God is good. And the fact that sometimes our best-laid plans get interrupted. And once in a while, gut-wrenching stuff gets placed in our path.

The sun rises and the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike.


Through this awful week I've clung to Jesus. Where else would I go? He has the words of Life.

And through it all I've found Him faithful and more than sufficient.

The day after the accident someone happened to quote my book in a tweet, "In God's kingdom, painful situations are catalysts for glorious transformation. #ItsNoSecret @RachelOlsen." 

I believe that.

So I guess God's plans for me and my family this spring is transformation of some sort. I'll take that.

I'm thankful that in God's design, mourning is always followed by rejoicing, and death is always followed by resurrection. I bet those gathering at Jesus' tomb some 2012 years ago were also thinking "What a difference a day makes."

Happy Easter, my friends.

May yours be transformative as well (minus the medical trauma and the passing out of course!)