Greetings, Loved Ones.
I went back to the hospital last week. The appointment was to get a fiberglass cast put on my leg in place of the back slab (half-fabric-half-plaster-cast) that had been protecting it since surgery. I was quite excited to get this tougher cast - which would make it easier to move around - or so I hoped.
So they cut off my post-surgery cast and revealed my (hopefully) healing ankle. It was hard for me to see my little leg, most of the calf muscle already deteriorated, paired with the ugliness of the green and brown and pink from the antiseptics and swelling. Not to mention the nearly 50 stitches on both sides of my leg. They began work on my leg straight away - and I began to grow concerned. I asked if it was safe to take out all of the stitches just yet--the nurse responded by saying there were another set of 50 underneath the skin--dissolvable. So I shut my mouth.
Removing the stitches was about 15 minutes or so of the most uncomfortable tugging sensation of my life. It was a sickening feeling that I know some of you can relate to, and also surprisingly painful. It was at about this time that the full force of what happened to me - what was still happening to me - rested upon my brain more concretely. I felt nauseous and anxious, but with little or no room to process what was going on or how I was feeling.
And then the stitches were out, and I heaved a sigh of relief. They wiped down the incisions again and put new bandages on and waited for the surgeon to check things out. I was deeply disappointed to hear him say that there was no way I would be getting a cast that day. He said my foot was still far too swollen and that I would need another back slab. I asked if I would have to come in again to get an actual cast and he said no, that I would "just be in the back slab for four weeks" and then they would "pop me in a moon boot."
The surgeon left, and I was asked to hop off the table and into my wheelchair so I could be moved to the room where they would put my new back slab on. Discouragement began to settle like a dark haze over my world. My family was on the other side of the earth, my closest friends were in PNG, and the women who had come with me to the hospital were somewhere that I didn't know how to get to. I was trying to keep my spirits up, but it felt like a losing battle. I got my new cast and got back into my wheelchair, wheeled myself around, and promptly ran over my one good foot. Ugh. I chastised myself for my endless stubborn determination to be independent. Just in case I wasn't feeling bad enough, I thought some self condemnation might be just the right medicine for my tired soul.
Suddenly, I was beyond discouraged. Deep sorrow grasped my whole heart. My heart sank as I felt internal pain to rival the external.
In my not so great state, my dear YWAM family gave me the day off to recover - but first they prayed for me and over me, which was such a blessing. Several people prayed, and I noticed that they all asked the Lord to take the pain away - probably because they could see I was so full of it at that point. And out of nowhere, out of somewhere deep inside my heart, I asked them not to pray for that any more. I said something like: "You know, this is the pain that's been allotted to me, and I'm alright with feeling it. I find that often times you grow far closer to people in times of sorrow than in times of joy, and that's what's happening with the Lord and I right now. Misery loves a partner, and that partner for me right now is Christ, as He is here with me, in the absence of all of my friends and family, feeling my pain with me. What kind of a foolish girl would I be if I rebuked the chance He's given me to grow closer to Him?"
Now, where did that come from I wondered? I tell you what though, discouragement fled. Suddenly I realized what I had been telling people for months--something I had read in a book by C.S.Lewis--that I didn't own anything, so how could I be upset at it's being taken away? The Lord gives me many blessings, but I have no entitlement to them, and if the Lord sees a more efficient way to grow me up in Him without those blessings, then so be it.
I am still in pain, but I am no longer lonely. Christ has revealed Himself to me in a way even clearer than I believe I could have experienced in PNG. I already knew Him to be a God of the spirit realms, powerful and able to heal miraculously, able to be felt distinctly and vividly. I already knew Him to be the God of adventures, the God I would climb endless mountains for, the God I would live on the mission field for, the God whose Name I would shout with triumph at anything evil that I came up against. The conquering God I was already acquainted with. The divinely intervening God I was already acquainted with. And now I knew Him first hand to be Someone I hadn't foreseen all too clearly: the God Who sits with you when your independence is gone. The God Who is your close companion when all the others are far away. The God Who feels your pain as you run over your own toes in the hallway of the hospital.
Here is the difference my friends: the God I had known before, the God I would do anything for because He was omnipotent and omnipresent and omniscient- the God I had utmost faith in because I knew He could never fail- though I knew Him, I didn't know Him to be personal - or at least not personal in this way. He was a King to me, not a companion. Sure I'd felt Him help me along in life. Sure I'd heard Him speak, clearly and frequently, even, throughout the hard times in my life. But suddenly, I knew Him in a whole new light. I now feel as though I truly can undergo anything- not because if I fail the Lord will conquer in another way, but because no matter what happens to me, the Lord my God will never leave me nor forsake me. Even as my own body has failed me, I know I cannot lose, because I have experienced the friendship of the Lord. What more could I possibly ask for? I regret nothing in breaking my leg. I would give this experience up for nothing. All the pain, all the loneliness, all the fear of having missed out on endless adventures-- it fades. I am experiencing and will now continue to experience for the rest of my life the wonderful relationship that is personal love between my Lord and myself. He cares for me and He feels my pain. He is carrying me through like a comrade in arms. I wouldn't change where I am if you offered me the world.
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