“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2)

Jesus and his disciples come across a blind man, and his disciples want to know why. Where did this suffering come from? Who is to blame?

As per usual, Jesus’ answer does not fit into their framework. There’s no one to blame. The injury is there “so that the works of God might be displayed in him,” not because he or his parents did anything wrong.

Today, on the way back from visiting the third hand doctor I’ve seen in the last year, I cried. I let the gentle drops of rain on the windshield accumulate without any desire to wipe them away. I kept my window ajar.

The last two doctors I’ve seen have told me that this is just the way my body is. My wrist injury that brings me pain when I’m playing piano and organ is not because I did something wrong in my technique, and it’s not because I didn’t try hard enough to fix it. It isn’t a structural issue that can be corrected through surgery.

I have hyperlaxity in my joints and ligaments, so my fingers, wrists, elbows and shoulders have an abnormal level of flexibility. It’s not dangerous, it’s just not conducive to painless piano playing for me. The degree of stability that others might have in their wrists while playing the piano is just not mine. As one doctor said, “some people have a bad knee- and you happen to have a bad wrist.”

I’ve spent so much time over the last eight years looking for what to blame, angry at myself for failing to understand the injury, confused about why this relatively mild pain has been so emotionally painful. I’ve searched for healing, and I’ve avoided it. I’ve wanted to be able to play piano without pain, and I’ve wanted to just walk away from the instrument forever. And it all brought me to this third doctor visit, to the rainy road, which eventually led to the hill-top monastery.

After some time on my knees in front of an icon of Mary and the infant Jesus, I wiped away tears and headed out of church with my head down. A priest sitting in the back of the chapel looked blankly at me, acknowledging my red-faced existence, but refusing to offer me any forced semblance of comfort.

Maybe he knows, I thought, that he doesn’t know the cause of suffering. Maybe he knows that he too does not know the answer to my pain. Maybe he knows that we don’t know, but there is just hope.

There is just hope that my injury, which has led me through frustrations with myself, encounters with my limits, humiliation at just how human and confused I am, is the avenue by which Christ will display the works of God in me. There is hope that mystery is greater and more giving than a finite answer.