It was five weeks since my accident, and by this time I had had a lot of time to try to find some meaning to this painful and frustrating experience—five weeks of lying on my back with my ankle elevated above my heart.

I had been asking why, and God, who is faithful, was beginning to answer. One word that came to me was, "For those who love God, all things turn to good."

I had heard this before, but I needed to hear it again, and now I needed to wait for this promise to reveal itself.

At that moment, however, I was too mesmerized by the marbles and what they represented to remember that word or to think about anything else.

I had come home from my first physiotherapy session, tired but encouraged. The therapist had told me to do some exercises and had given me a few sheets of paper which explained and illustrated them. Three times a day, I was to do each exercise ten times. They were, she told me, very simple, basic exercises.

One of the exercises was putting a hand towel on the floor and crumbling it with my toes, and another was rolling a ball forward and backwards, right and left, and round about—all with my injured foot, of course. We had gone through these exercises together, and it was all quite clear.

The last exercise was picking up ten marbles, one by one, with my toes and dropping them in a dish. But we hadn’t been able to go through that one together, because she didn’t have any marbles. I told her that our gift shop would surely be able to provide me with some.

Day one of the exercises I managed to get through the exercises once—except for the ones with the marbles—and fell on my bed totally drained.

Though I had been told that, given the circumstances, this was to be expected, those so-called basic, simple exercises were more work than I had anticipated. I was very grateful that the marbles hadn’t arrived yet.

Day two, I managed to do the exercises twice. That was progress, but I had exhausted myself both times. Thank God the marbles hadn’t come.

Day three was the day of reckoning; the marbles had arrived. I went through the first set of exercises and then placed the marbles on the towel. I selected one and curled my toes over it.

I couldn’t pick it up. I tried again. Again and again I tried. But no matter how hard I curled my toes, there was no way I could pick up that marble.

This is a ridiculous exercise, I told myself. It was designed to make one feel like a failure!

Frustrated and tired, I got back on my bed and tried deep breathing.

Well, at least they were pretty marbles. Someone had found me a little glass dish to store them in, and they made a decoration for my bureau.

Day four, I went through the process all over again. It didn’t occur to me to do the marble exercise first when I was fresh and more relaxed.

When I got to that exercise, I did manage to pick up one marble, but I dropped it before it reached the dish.

The exercise sheet made it clear that picking up marbles with my toes would be possible. What was wrong with me that I couldn’t do it?

Of course, my toes were getting a workout, and I knew that this was helping my poor ankle, but really….

Ugh! Ludicrous! Stupid! Too much, too soon. Forget it!

On day five, I dumbly sat in a chair in front of those marbles. Was this where almost fifty years in Madonna House had brought me? I wanted to cry, scream, and fling the marbles across the room.

The indignities of this injury, its miseries and pain and my incredible dependence on the care of those around me, all became focused in my frustration with this exercise. Those marbles had become my scapegoat.

Then suddenly, my emotions switched. It all felt like "do or die." If arm amputees could learn to use their toes, so would I!

So I decided to screw up my courage. But in doing so, I also screwed up my features and clenched my teeth and my hands. In fact, every muscle, every part of my body was tightened to the max—including my toes, of course. I was holding my breath from the effort of it all.

Really this was too much. I had to let go somehow.

At that point, I happened to glance at a card someone had sent me. On the front was a picture of a beautiful cat sitting on a mat in what was obviously an exercise room. One of its back legs was straight up in the air, the other was angled forward, and the tail was curled in front—a position impossible for any cat.

But it was the look on the cat’s face which struck me: determined, frustrated woebegoneness.

The caption inside read: "I meditate, I do yoga, I chant, and still I want to smack somebody."

I was showing that card to everyone who came to my room. It was part of my keeping-my-spirits-up-and-entertaining-my-visitors-routine. It was great! It worked.

But now suddenly I was seeing that card in a new light. Now I felt totally identified with that cat on the mat. I started to laugh and laugh. Eventually I was laughing so hard that I was crying—a good cathartic cry.

Day six, I began the exercises by doing some deep breathing and trying to relax. Somewhere in the process, I received my second word: without me, you can do nothing (Jn 15:5).

"Yes," I thought, "not even pick up marbles with my toes!"

Of course I had been praying daily, but why hadn’t these exercises become part of my prayer?

Day seven, Cheryl Ann stopped by to ask me how things were going. I had just managed to place all ten marbles in the dish for the very first time.

Yes, I had done it! I tried to tell Cheryl Ann what had been happening, but every time I got to the word "marbles," I burst into uncontrollable laughter.

Pent up relief, comic relief, call it what you will. Eventually I got the "m" word out, and we both ended up marveling at how God works in our lives.

Often it is the simplest, most humble, most unexpected incident that brings us back to very basic realities. Without Me, you can do nothing.

Yes, God is the God of the stuff of all of life, no matter how small, no matter how painful, no matter how ridiculous I think it is.

Yes, "for those who love God, all things turn into good."