Dislocated Realizations

Well I did it again.

I re-dislocated my hip yesterday…doing, of all things: my toenails. Everyone said, “Why didn’t you just ask your daughter?” Yeah. And I did. Like 6 times. There comes a point, as she well knows, and as any mom knows, when you give up and just do it yourself. Lot of good that did me! Pop…and ooowwwwwwwwhhhh. Here we go again. This time, of course, as Murphy would have it, I was stark naked—with damp purple toenails…sitting in my recliner. Well, let me tell you…getting me out of there was quite a project. They had to call for extra help. So if you can picture it (but please don’t try) about ten guys crowded into my little room and me butt naked, trying not to scream in pain. They tried to take the door off the hinges and that didn’t work. Finally they slid my chair around a bit and got a blanket under me (with many moans from me) and then came the bad part…them lifting me and carrying me like a sack of potatoes into the living room to the stretcher. Pain? That is not an adequate word…in fact there IS no English word which conveys how that felt. I was groaning like a woman in the last throes of giving birth: those tearing, deep cries that come from lower than your guts.

The worst part of it all is not the pain. It’s not the bruises already forming on the sides of my breasts from the crutches. It’s not the honkin’ brace I have to wear for the next 8 weeks. It’s the fact that I won’t get to walk again outside, probably for the rest of the year. Even typing that invites tears. 8 weeks is….the end of October. I doubt that I’ll get another walk in. By then asthma can have me in its grip. All my efforts at health can go right out the window—every hard earned muscle. All my lung stamina and capacity…my limberness built with stretching and yoga…it’s all gone. One word: Crap!

I could cry thinking about it. All the strength people talk about…all the invincibility…all the control they take over their own lives--it’s all a smoke-screen for the fact that we are weak, fragile,--feathers blowing on the winds of chance; or God’s plan. All of our self autonomy is a farce. This strength in which we boast is just an injury away from dissipation; an illness away. We are foolish and pompous to think that we can control our health and our destiny. We are ropes in the hands of the tug of war between Satan and God. We are the flag tied on the middle of that rope. Where we end up all depends on who pulls harder. Of course God could drag Satan around the globe if He wanted to…but for His own, inexplicable reasons, sometimes He allows Satan to drag us through the mud…maybe it’s only to prove to us that we are NOT the ones pulling the rope. We are NOT the ones who control things but merely flags flapping on the breeze of chance and God’s permission.

We brag and flex our puny muscle…and God laughs. And Satan snickers. Satan begs to destroy us. God acts to humble us. And before we know it; we are on our butts, naked and muddy, and groaning in the recognition that we are helpless. Helpless, please note, does NOT mean that we are without culpability and accountability. We cannot say, “See, there’s nothing I can do and nothing I do is my fault…” and then eat through the refrigerator. No, We do not get the gains. Neither do we enjoy the “benefit” of sin, the “pleasure that lasts but a moment”…No. We must not concede to self-indulgence. And we will receive blessed little reward for that…at least here, on this planet.

We groan. Satan laughs. And God sighs.

Why does God sigh? Because maybe He longs to explain and show us the end of the story…where we will see that it all works out for our benefit…somehow. Maybe He longs to show us that our 2 years in the wheelchair; or months bedridden, or weeks of pain, or months in a brace….are really paltry and insignificant in the light of what He is doing. They will fall, forgotten by the wayside like a snake’s discarded skin. But to tell us now, would ruin the delight of the moment of recognition we will have when we finally SEE that “light at the end of the tunnel” and UNDERSTAND it all….and when we SEE, revealed in that light, what our true and very great reward really is. It’s not muscle. It’s not invincibility. It’s not strength, It’s not health. It’s a weak, desperate dependence on the everlasting arms beneath us. On the loving shoulders who carry our trembling frame. On the love that bears us up and gently lifts us out of that mud puddle and carries us to a place so glorious and to a body so strong, that we will laugh at our prior disappointment. And part of the journey to that place-a necessary part- is learning to be weak and letting him do the lifting of our frail selves. It’s resting on those shoulders; on those strong arms…and letting GO of the need to control this body…of the need to convince ourselves of our strength and autonomy. It’s the understanding that we are weak and frail and that the dreams that we dreamed for ourselves are foolish and poor dreams compared to the ones He is dreaming for us—and bringing to reality. Part of our reward is the understanding that our strength does not, never has, and never will come from our own will, decisions or bodies…but our strength lies in the level of weak dependence on His unlimited unmitigated strength. THAT strength, Satan is powerless to drag around. Illness is helpless to touch or destroy. THAT is our inheritance. THAT is our reward. THAT is our true power. For when we are weak; then HE can be strong. And when He is strong…we are the ones to benefit.