The Blessing of a Broken Pinky by Atara (Semifinalist #1)

The Blessing of a Broken Pinky by Atara (Semifinalist #1)

In honor of Purim, welcome to our “My Life’s a Megilla” Contest! Each day I will be featuring a different semifinalist’s story about a challenging life event that turned out to be Divine blessing in disguise. Next week you’ll have a chance to vote for the grand-prize $100 winner:)

I had been working for over 2 years at a hospital-based rehabilitation clinic, and was feeling burned out.

I had been debating leaving my job, but in today’s job market, it was daunting to think about starting to look for a new position–so I stuck it out. And I hoped I would become pregnant and then while on maternity leave I could do a leisurely job hunt without having to quit my job first.

Well, as the saying goes, “Man plans, God laughs….” I wasn’t getting pregnant. And I was stuck in a job I didn’t like. My boss was picking on me, the commute was long, the hours hard, and the pay not high enough to be a comfort for all the hardship.

Well, one Shabbat afternoon, while separating two overtired, fighting kids who had strewn toys and books all over the floor, I slipped and fell and broke the pinky on my dominant hand.

The break was pretty large for a pinky, and I was given a cast up to my elbow. I was forced to be on sick leave for 6 weeks. “Bummer!”

Well, the first “blessing in disguise” was that my daughter who has a physical handicap was just about to be enter first grade in the local neighborhood elementary school, and the building was not handicapped accessible at all.

The sick leave I was forced to take enabled me to be extremely proactive and hand-on (one was in a sling…) to spearhead the necessary renovation of the school to make it accessible for my daughter and other handicapped children.

I would never have been been available to spend so much time on this project if I had been working, and without my insistence and perseverance the project would never have happened!

The second “blessing in disguise” from this whole story was that I returned to work 6 weeks after my injury, to a boss who was furious that I had taken so much time off and had it in for me. She was looking over my shoulder at every turn and making my life miserable.

At my employee review this boss recommended that the hospital terminate my employment. In simple English- I was fired:) Which meant I was able to leave the job I hated, with severance pay as a bonus.

Before I actually left that job, I received a call from a local clinic that still had my resume from 4 years earlier(!!) and was looking to hire. I had an interview and closed on the job even before I left my hated job.

In retrospect, that pinky fracture was the biggest “Hug from God” I have ever received!!

I moved to a new job with a decent salary, lovely boss, great co-workers, short commute, and flexible work hours.

And–icing on the cake– literally a day or two after I left the hated job–I became pregnant:)

Atara is a physical therapist and lives on a yishuv in the Binyamin region with her husband and 5 children.

3 comments

  1. Wow, what a beautiful story! Especially smiled at the end.

  2. Fantastic story, thank you!

  3. What an amazing turn of events. Just wondering, when you fell and broke your pinky – did your kids stop fighting? There’s another blessing in disguise right there :-))

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