Journeys 9-17-06

Journeys 9-17-06

Half-way healed. That’s how I feel right now. Yes, I’m making progress. Yes, I’m taking steps to build my atrophied muscles back. But there is the nagging question in my mind, “Will this ever be over? Will I ever actually walk again?”

Since May 10th, I’ve gone from bed to wheelchair to crutches to one crutch to my new one week old cane. As I’d get fast with one apparatus, we’d move to the next one and start all over again.

Physically, it’s about healing bones, ligaments and muscles. Mentally and spiritually, its about trusting that my leg won’t give out on me if I put full weight on it; having the confidence to take a risk. This week for the first time, my physical therapist said, “Go ahead, try taking some steps without touching the parallel bars.” For some reason, those parallel bars make this creaking noise when I lean on them, so even if he was working with another patient, I couldn’t cheat without making some noise.

My Spiritual Director talked with me some this last week about the possibility of being “whole” even though I’m only half-way healed. He said, my soul, my person, is still the same in God’s eyes even if my body is broken and unable to perform. We talked about how, age makes it possible for something to be “wrong” all the time for the rest of my life. Everything doesn’t have to be fixed and in perfect condition for me to be whole.

I told him that going to those first two Husker football games had helped put me back together again inside. Even from the handicapped section, hearing the band play those same old songs, the sound of eighty-some thousand clapping and cheering together, healed something that had come apart inside of me. It was kind of like worship. It was coming home. In worship we sing the same old songs, do the same old things, shake the same hands, see the same people, and whatever has been pulled apart inside of us gets put back together again. We know who we are and who’s we are, and we have confidence to step out that church door and risk giving ourselves away again.

Everything is not, “right.” Everything is not perfect, and may never be perfect again, but through our brokenness we can see the brokenness of others and God nudges us to step forward through the pain offering love and caring.

Now, I think, maybe, my whole life, I’ve been half-way healed, and just didn’t know it.

Grace & Peace,