On healing

The past few weeks have been full of highs and lows.

(The good and the bad, am I right?)

It’s been a mix of so many blessings, my heart fills like it might burst. But the sheer relief and joy, is still coupled with sharp stabs of pain as I navigate a life I never asked for or wanted.

It all comes at the end of what I coined my Summer of Healing.

Last spring, my son badly injured his knee. It was clear early on that he would need surgery, something that is incredibly dangerous with his medical condition. Preparing for the surgery itself was complicated, with his various doctors weighing in on how best to ensure that his body could handle the anesthesia and protocols for avoiding a life-threatening infection.

I knew all of that would be necessary, but it was what his surgeon said next that defined our summer.

The healing is going to hurt so much worse than the injury itself.

He was right.

The first two weeks after the surgery were a haze of pain, medications, sleeplessness and tears (for both of us).

Then, my son began a nine months of physical therapy. One week in he said,

I know why I need to do it. I have to heal right, but it hurts so much worse than if I just stopped moving it. It’s a battle in my brain because I just want to sit really still and not take any more pain.

Same, kid. Same.

My plan was for my summer of healing to weave into his, with a list of things to do to push through the pain and begin to move freely again. My own version of physical therapy looked like this:

Sleep a later if I needed to (and not beat myself up for not getting up and getting things done)

​My 3 Dubs (water, walks, words)​

• Drink plenty of water
• Go on 3 walks a day with Sammy (my son’s service dog)
• Start writing for myself and others again (you’re reading this step right now and have been all summer).

Daily prayer petitions to embrace the truth. To stop covering-up and avoiding the pain. To stop lying to myself that hiding the truth was somehow protecting us (you have also been a part of this all summer).

When I first made this list, I imagined how much better I would feel by the end of the summer. That time, combined with the list of kindnesses above, would make a significant difference over the course of three full months.

I thought I would be in a much different place and capable of dealing with my life in a way that felt sustainable, authentic and even joyful.

I am so happy to say that I was right.

I do feel exactly that.

The end of summer surprise, however, is how wonderful it all is and at the same time, how much it still hurts.

My son’s surgeon was right.

The healing hurts so much worse than the injury itself.

As night falls sooner and the temperature cools, I am coming to understand and accept that unlike my son’s knee, this wound may never heal the way I want it to.

This wound was inflicted slowly, over the course of a decade, and then ripped clean open in an email and an online bank log-in. This wound occurred in a body already riddled with scar tissue and other wounds that never really healed right.

For too long, like my son, my instinct has been to avoid the pain, to sit still and just stop the hurt. I fight that instinct every single day.

And yet, in allowing the pain to come, over and over again, as much as it needs to, I can feel myself healing. Stronger, more confident, even happy, but still irrevocably scarred and changed.

This wound is an important part of me, of who I am, and who I will become.

I am accepting it. It lives here now, in my body and in my story.

 Like the jagged scars on my son’s knee that he loves to show off, a visible representation of the pain he has endured, I am even learning to embrace it.

Prayer

If you would like prayer, please feel free to email me at [email protected] and I will happily pray for you this week. 

If you would like to support my work, please click here.