Tag: disappointment

Snakes and Stones

A new song brushes by on Pandora this week, and the first line wrecks me, a perfect mirror of the pain and frustration marking the past month.

Tired and I am angry at the nature of it all
Fighting just to find myself a breath

After scrapping all year to heal from last summer’s injury, I was ready to try again to perhaps be the first woman to hike the 115 tallest mountains in the Northeast in one continuous footpath. At least give it a try.

I was feeling pretty good, actually, most of the year.

I’m able to get back on the trails that I love, covertly start a second Grid (shh).

I spend time with the littles, joy at my son’s engagement, teach the sweetest bunch of middle school boys on the planet.

All along, in the back of my mind, is The Hike. A metaphor for overcoming: injury and age and the steady drip of the world.

Then.

It starts as an ache in my shoulder, travels down the muscles of my back. A nagging there-ness that begins to shout the moment I put on a pack.

Sparing no attention to rehab my wretched hip, I had neglected other places that were bent on rebellion. The pain is constant, a reminder that the time to leave is short and I can’t leave, I won’t, until it does.

Not this time, I tell myself, and try everything available to excise the growing knot hellbent on shipwrecking my plans. Chiro, deep tissue massage, reps with rubber bands, a tennis ball.

I go back to the stories that have always brought me hope.

Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:9-11)

How. Much. More.

And yet – though I know it can’t be true – it seems that all I get are snakes and stones.

I love the forest. It is a place where I can be, silent, away. Away from other weighty pains, where it’s okay to be alone.

Can I trust, at home, my own tired soul? Not good with empty time, I fear I could be a danger to myself.

And then, just when it seems my shoulder starts to calm – bread! fish! – I cannot even. Attention drawn away from its constant demands, my hip reverts back to its old treacherous ways. It would be hilarious if it wasn’t just so darn sad.

Can these dry bones live?

I wonder and worry. Will these compound setbacks be a dark night of the soul, leading me to oceans of deeper trust – or will they send me spiraling?

I realize I have a say in the matter, and who wants to willingly spiral when it’s surrender that is necessary?

So I try. Remember all the fish, all the bread from seasons past.

Number present blessings. Pray and cry and pray some more. Banish those doubts and disappointments to the empty tomb and roll back the stone.

God’s plans are rarely linear.

I do wish He were predictable. So much of the last decade has been anything but.

But what I can count on, what is as unmistakably as granite solid as the mountains I crave, is Himself. His presence, provision, and care.

So I wait here in limbo, knowing that his howmuchmoreness will one day win.

What will this summer hold?

Ah, Sovereign Lord, you alone know.

The Divine Conductor

I’ve been thinking a lot about turtles lately.

Actually, for some reason, they seem to be thinking a lot about me.

Ever since I got home from the hike I had planned for this summer – an attempt that ended in a catastrophic injury (okay, perhaps hyperbolic, but it’s been a real bummer) – turtles have been showing up everywhere.

My biggest little gives me a picture of one she made out of stickers. She had a whole zoo to choose from, but this is the one she picked:

Multiple turtles have been using my yard as a cut through to the marsh behind my house. Big and small, they galump across the grass, seemingly oblivious to the mosquito cloud engulfing their head, until they eventually hit the woods.

I’ve had to rescue turtles who freeze crossing the road, caught glimpses of ones who made it over without intervention, others who flatly did not.

The largest one was the snapper I argued with the day before my hike ended. He appeared unreasonably determined to turn into traffic and unwilling to accept that my trekking pole was sent to save his life, biting and scratching at it until he at last complied.

I’ve had a lot of time on my hands. Too much time, in my opinion, trying to figure out where I am and how I got here, a prisoner of my own recovery. From under this heavy carapace, I look out into a world that has become too expansive for my broken frame.

How easy it would be to turn on God. To blame Him for this injury, these thwarted plans, this wretched “wasted” summer, this limping around an empty house looking for something meaningful to do.

But that is not His way.

As His children, we need His Father-ship. We need, I need, His comfort, compassion, wisdom, and hope.

Holding on by my fingernails, I search His word for anything that will get me through the day.

To a hungry soul, every bitter thing is sweet. (Proverbs 27:7)

Yearning to walk, even a short, painful trip to the mailbox is a delight.

Lord, to whom else would we go? You have the words of eternal life. (John 6:68)

Icing, stretching, visits to the chiro: I do my best to steward my recovery. Even so, when and if I am healed on earth, my body still remains in a constant state of decay. This (glory!) will not be true in my forever home.

Blessed are they whose strength is in You…As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a spring…they go from strength to strength. (Psalm 84:5-6)

The Valley of Baca was a place of drought, hardship and tears that pilgrims needed to pass through on the way to Jerusalem. I, too, can traverse this valley, taking courage from Him, building my resolve, until even the driest of sands becomes a pool.

And my all time, go-to favorite:

I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord In the land of the living. (Psalm 27:13)

Though we are never assured a suffer-free life, He does promise nuggets of goodness along the way.

Ease is not our lot.

Difficult forges the fight in us. Who needs to overcome green meadows when it’s a battlefield that lies ahead? Muscles are molded in the gym, not on the couch, even when the only muscles I seem able to mold at this moment are metaphorical.

For now, if I can’t go out to the beauty, I’ll bring beauty inside.

There are grands to play with, friends to visit, meals to plan and distribute.

If I can’t move my body, I will work on my brain. Reading, writing, prayer, puzzles: there is still so much rich I am able to do.

Slowly, slowly, slowly, I drag this shell across the yard.

We must trust the hand of the Divine Conductor, who orchestrates our circumstance, the rests as well as the notes. We cannot see what He sees, so it does no good to beat at his baton.

He knows everything about the when and how and where. (Isaiah 28:29)

I didn’t choose this wilderness, but I’m okay knowing He is with me in it, cheering me on, until, one day, it ends.

Press on.