Recovery

When the knife cuts, bones break, the world shatters, dreams disintegrate… body and mind are numb, if not from medication then from shock and adrenaline.

Cradled, covered by His grace, unable to grasp the terror, unable to fully feel the pain. Muffled, you sink into the rest that is being completely out of control. In a fog of quiet brokeness there is no grasping awareness of the catastrophe or the painful road ahead. There is only the moment of survival.

and then the recovery. When the sharp hot pain blazes across heart and mind, nerves wrench awake as the body heals. When those who were taking gentle care, ask you to stand, when the stitches are pulled out, the cast taken off. When the emptiness is found, pressing deep into the wound, when the denial becomes raging grief, what then?  Thinking you have survived are you now succumbing?

Don’t fear this awakening of pain and terror, confused thoughts flying, bitterness taking root with promises to blossom soon if not weeded out. This all is proof hard and true that there is healing. Strength is growing enough to stand and feel the weakness, feel the aftermath and see the storm that has been all the while raging.

When climbing the stairs takes all your breath away and your heart beats frantic in your chest, when moving on brings hurt with every step, then you realize all you have lost and it washes over you. The questions flood – how to ever make it past this place? why now so weak, so different, despised, reeling in the throbbing ache? and when was that time where good and bad had definition, when all wasn’t one big blaming question? is there a way back?

the recovery room, the rehab

And then one day the scar has smoothed over, lost its jagged edge, paled in comparison to the life that is in you.

but still it will wash over, hits you in the gut. When you are least expecting, reminding you of your forever wound. We each have our scars, and they remind us patience for each other. For there are those places we long to but can not tell and we stumble, our ugly limp the evidence of battles lost.

Are there words for this? Silly to even try to voice all that rumbles under the surface. But those that know told me, it takes time, don’t be surprised. And still, feeling the strength to stand, you’re again surprised at the jolts of pain, the uneasy stagger. But all this a reckoning of recovery, strong enough to feel what has happened, coming out of the daze, no longer paralyzed and thankful for the days to walk again.

Walk forward and learn to call the scar a friend because it breaks you to your knees before Him.