Today I greeted the morning with a message
that read, in part, "Here you are
broken and far away, yet still trying to help - sounds just like you though..."
There was this brief moment when I had to
stop to ask myself, "Does it? Does
this sound just like me?" And this
is not a, "yay me!" moment.
Really, it's not. I have long
since decided that those kinds of moments are overrated. But I think this was an accurate picture of
who I really am. I recently used a quote
in a FB post, "She knows who she is, she just forgot for a little
while" - Donald Miller. I can't
remember if I also used this quote, here, but it's good enough to repeat.
So, for anyone following the personal,
physical struggle I am currently dealing with, yesterday I sat in a doctor's
office and a physical therapist said to me, "Yeah, your ribs are popped
(which I knew), but your spine isn't working right, either." And there was just this, "Are you
kidding me?" reaction. I'm thirty-six
years old. Of course my spine is
working. Catch me at eighty-six, and
maybe I'll be able to accept this kind of statement, but seriously, I just
don't have time for this. Of course,
these words (in my head) are defense mechanisms. They are a way to fight the anxiety and panic
as I then proceeded to let her move my ribs and spine (I think,
"aggressively" was the word she used) for the next 35 minutes. And then I made appointments for six more
weeks, so we can do this all over again... and again... and again... I would like to throw up every time I think
about this, but that might not be the best plan, because I'm thinking about it
a lot.
I'm so done being scared of stuff,
though. That's why I went to work out
today, even though "work out" is going to look a lot more like
"crawl on a treadmill" for the foreseeable future. At least the scariest part of that adventure
was the old guy that hit on me.
Whatever. I think I could
probably outrun him if I had to, spine, ribs, and all...
And then I had lunch with a friend, and I
ran across a fortune cookie that read, "A
journey of a thousand miles begins with one small step."
Although I wouldn't necessarily suggest using
fortune cookies as your primary means of advice, I came home and booked a
couple of flights. I'm planning to book
a couple more, tonight. The craziest thing
about this is that it made me feel happy.
If you know me, this is sort of weird, since I don't love flying, but I
think I've decided that 2016 is simply going to be the year I stop saying that. If I'm really done being scared of stuff,
flying counts too.
I can't let incidental life crap get in my
way anymore. I have pretty much decided
that if there's something that I think I should do, if there's something that I
think God would be pleased with me
doing, I'm doing it. It doesn't have to
make sense. I don't have to have it all
planned out. I'm just going to take that
first step... and the next one... and the next one...
I am a little overwhelmed by how well this
has been working since I flipped the calendar.
Life is not perfect. In fact,
there are things that really stink right now.
I don't get it, but none of it is more than God can understand.
I'm liking this Scripture, a lot, today, "Because he himself was tested by what
he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested" (Hebrews 2:18, NRSV).
It's about Jesus. I
always say I want to be like Jesus.
Maybe it's about me, too...
L.
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