At various times throughout all of this, people would ask me how we were getting through it. I have to say that during this journey I knew that God was there. I could feel that we were not walking through it alone. There were many points along the way that didn’t go according to “plan”, but I never felt that any of it was a surprise to God. There were most certainly frustrations and disappointments. I knew- because His Word, the Bible, tells me - that He is faithful and never left us. There are still parts of the journey that make me tear up or flat out cry when I think about or talk about them. Sometimes the physical pain that I went through was intense. Sometimes the emotional pain it caused Scott and me was intense. Scott had secrets to hold so that I wouldn't think about what things could happen, like the fact that I came seriously scary-close to having an amputation at the ankle because of the infection. Honestly, the realization of the pain it caused Scott still hurts. But God never said that this life on Earth would be easy. He said He would never leave or forsake us. He loves us.
There are so many aspects of this journey that are indescribable. Words just aren’t enough sometimes to cover the magnitude of the horror and the pain that we experienced. At the same time, sometimes words are inadequate to describe the thankfulness and awe at God’s grace and mercy through it all. It’s a similar feeling to be in the middle of the darkest, pitch-black night, feeling completely alone. Suddenly a little glimmer of light breaks through the darkness. HOPE. You’re really not alone. The gratefulness and relief that wash over you in that moment is enough to keep you going. But not just to keep you going--you run through the darkness toward that Light. You fix your eyes upon it. You don’t turn to the left or to the right. You can’t. You know the darkness will engulf you if you do. So you keep going—limping crawling, or whatever—with your eyes fixed upon that Hope. That Light. That Truth. We are compelled to the Light so we must go there. No one wants to be swallowed up. Jesus was all we had and He had to be enough. Giving up wasn’t an option. We had two kids at home. What else could we do except to have faith? I still could have lost my foot from the infection. We had no promises. No guarantees. But, it is true that hope will not disappoint us. All we could do was to stay in the place where God was, no matter where that “was” went. If I had lost my foot, we must trust Him for that, too.
Everyday I see the scars. Some days I still have pain in my ankle. The trauma remains, but I am becoming whole in this “working out” of my salvation. Our daughter still remembers. My husband still tears up at the memories of those months. The pain ran deep, to the core of who we were. But, the experience cannot be wasted. My processing of all this is worth it to help me experience the full redemption of Christ’s work in me. The pain was mine. The redemption of that pain belongs to Jesus. We have so much to share of His excellent greatness. We can praise Him. My pain is not wasted. Our pain is not wasted. Our marriage is stronger. I trust God with my body. I trust God with my kids. I trust God with my finances. I trust God with my provision. I trust God for tomorrow.
There are so many lessons I have learned through this whole process, but I feel that by far the most important are:
1.) God is really enough. HE is all you need.
2.) God is good.
3.) God is faithful. Even when the situations of life suck, He will hold you through it.
4.) I am stronger than I knew because of God’s grace in giving me His strength.
You see, God is the giver of life. The Creator of ALL things. He loves His creations and ALWAYS provides for them. He knows all things, even before they happen and He goes ahead of you and waits for you. He holds your hand through it all. When we cry out, He hears and answers. The Bible says it best:
Jeremiah 29:11-13:
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for a welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.
In the verses around Jeremiah 29:11, God was reminding his people, who had been exiled from their land, that He had not forgotten them or left them. There was a purpose in their pain. He would restore His relationship with them and it would be stronger than before.
Romans 5:3-4:
...we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.
5.) Rejection is painful. The rejection of the titanium in my body was physically painful. The rejection by our friends was mentally and emotionally painful. There is an epidemic in our society, and even within the churches, where we either intentionally or unintentionally reject the people around us who need help. We reject those who need us to walk beside them during a struggle. We all enjoy being around someone when things are fun and going well. However, it’s the mark of a true friend and Christ follower to sacrifice your own comfort for the sake of someone else. Both Scott and I felt isolated and lonely and forgotten about during much of the 11 months of this whole ordeal. I needed someone to stay with our children when I had doctor’s appointments, because many of the appointments I had to go to were traumatic. I needed Scott there with me, but we didn’t want out children to see or hear that trauma. There were times that I felt like my pleas for help fell on deaf ears…ears of people we had called friends. It was during all of this that we learned that the only One who will never reject us is God.
6.) Open wounds have to heal from the inside out. No matter how many times the skin grew and covered over the wound on my leg, because the inside wasn’t healing first, the wound would keep re-opening. We tried everything we could to get it to heal. It just wasn’t working in the end because the thing that was causing the wound on the inside remained. That’s why all the hardware had to come out. It’s similar with emotional pain. If we don’t deal with what is cause of emotional pain in our lives, we will never heal properly. As was the case with the hardware in my leg, sometimes we have to remove or let go of people or circumstances in our lives that don’t allow us to heal.
7.) God provides.
I had been nursing our son, M, since he was born. He was a little over 5 months old when I broke my leg. He wouldn’t take a bottle before I broke my leg. When I broke my leg, I had to pause (and then eventually stop) nursing because of the pain killers I was taking. They weren’t good for him. We originally thought we’d be able to go back to nursing, but because of the complications that happened, I ended up taking pain killers longer than expected. During that time, M took formula and did well with a bottle. I was thankful for that, but at the same time, I was grieving that we weren’t bonding like we had been. Once the pain killers were no longer needed, M and I had to build the bonding process back up to where we felt comfortable with each other again. God provided in that M took bottles, but then reconnected us and allowed our bond to be very strong. He still needs to come “touch base” and sit in my lap or snuggle up or hug and then he is ready to go back to whatever he is doing.
God provided for our financial needs during a time when finances were tight. Scott’s job was in sales. Part of his earnings was salary and part was commissions. There had been a downturn in the economics of our country. During the entire process of dealing with my leg, Scott’s sales were doing badly enough that he didn’t receive the commission part of his earnings at all. God stretched our finances and provided enough income to cover all of our responsibilities. We didn’t have any extra, but we had enough.
God provided stamina and encouragement at the right moments during the journey. The sweet ladies in my Bible Study prayed for us and checked in and brought us meals when they could. They were the hands and feet of Jesus. Our own children made us laugh when we needed to not cry. Our mothers sacrificed part of their lives to come and take care of the children and house. That provided relief, allowing us to be more able to focus on my getting better. God provided the funds for us to be able to go to Walt Disney World for a week. That week was the most relaxing, fun, bonding week for our family.
God provided and protected the relationship between Scott and me. There was not much time many days to even speak to each other beyond the needs of my care or the care of our children. I was in so much pain for months that physical intimacy and that connection was close to impossible. The days that Scott was stripping the wound and causing some of the physical pain were very difficult for both of us. How could I not love a man even more for loving me and serving me and caring for me when it was dark and difficult? Throughout the whole process of my leg healing, Scott was always there, ready and willing to do what was needed to be done so I could heal. We had to learn how to sift through the things that were really important from the arguments that were mainly about the stress we felt, and not about the differences between each other. We were so stressed out for so long, yet our relationship grew stronger. I learned to let go of many of the things that were about my own agenda. We had to learn to communicate in an efficient, but thoughtful, way. We get comments from our friends now about how well we communicate with each other. Praise God for that, because without Him, that could have gone in a completely different direction.
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There are so many aspects of this journey that I don’t understand, and probably never will understand. I will never understand God’s timing of this journey…why He chose a time when our children were so young. I will never understand how friends who said they loved us would end up leaving us when we needed them the most. I will never know how deeply it impacted our children. I will never fully understand God’s “big picture” behind this journey. I have come to terms with all that. What I have begun to see is how it impacted me. Through God’s grace, I am more aware of the suffering around me. I pray that I am more compassionate and responsive when I see suffering. Relationships have a much deeper meaning and connection for me. My close friends have become family. I am more intentional about developing those relationships. I am more forgiving. I never considered myself to be someone who would hold a grudge, but going through the experience of having most of our friends leave us showed me how much more room there was for me to be even more forgiving—to let go of even righteous hurt and anger, and to forgive. I learned that being unforgiving would never really affect the other person as much as it would damage me. Mark Twain’s quote, “Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored that to anything on which it is poured,” really stuck with me. I think the same idea can be applied to unforgiveness. Forgiving someone never has anything to do with the person who offended me. It’s not about saying that what they did was okay. It’s about bringing healing for me and being able to let go of the offense, just as Christ did for me. Colossians 3:12-13 says, ”Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive.”
I have a much deeper faith that God is in control and that everything that happened to us passes through His hands first. If He has ordained it for our lives (which He always has), then I know it will be for our good and for His glory. So, even if it is painful, I know He is trustworthy. He is faithful. He will be there through the whole thing. He will provide for our needs. Jesus alone is my hope.
I am not perfect. Far from it. But this journey has brought me farther, deeper into faith and surrender to Jesus than where I was before. For that, I will always praise my God for it.
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