Life doesn’t turn out the way you expected. I feel like I’ve heard that line twenty times, maybe twenty thousand, but it never fails to cause some stir of emotion in me: sometimes joy, other times sorrow, and even still another feeling – anger. Yeah, no shit, I often think to myself. You think I don’t know that? You think I thought this was going to happen? You think I thought I’d have to watch my body break down? You think I thought I’d be left broken hearted? Who plans on life-altering devastation? Who plans on having their dreams crushed? Who plans on losing what they love?
Worse than the implied invalidation of the statement, people usually use this phrase as a response meant to elicit comfort, sort of like this change is simply a universal thing. While change is constant in our world, that does not mean it does not affect us in serious manners and can absolutely change the projection of the life we once thought we knew. On top of the physical pain, perhaps the most devastating part of tragedy is grieving all the things that we’ve missed, our missing, and will miss. This causes repeated waves of grief to come washing over us like a storm to our ships, drenching us over and over again every time we’ve just cleaned up from the last wave. It’s deflating, to say the least, and makes you really wonder why God has allowed this to happen to you.
This was the only question I could sob as I sat crying in the middle of school, surrounded by my dear friends and a very concerned custodian. I usually hate crying (or showing any emotions on the edge of sadness) in front of others, let alone in such a public setting. But today I was just too tired. I was tired of having to walk around my disability-enemy campus because my university refused to offer me accommodations. I was tired of fighting everyday just to sit up and try to get out of bed without pain. And I was tired of pretending like I was alright when I was dying inside. Yet nobody asked me to pretend. No one told me to “toughen up.” In fact, all of my friends and loved ones have been more than willing to help and have jumped at a minute’s notice when I needed them. So why did I feel this way? Who told me to act like this?
For me, I believe it’s from two of the most important places in my life – soccer and church. Regarding the former, I grew up under an old-school coach, where you put your body on the line, take one for the team, and keep going if you can’t go any farther. Although I still believe playing all out is not an inherently bad thing and does not always coordinate with your likelihood of injury, I have begun questioning this philosophy as a way of shutting off and ignoring your body’s signals that something may not be right, which can lead to injuries. On top of that, as a woman who spent her first two decades coached exclusively by men, I was often not given exercises and drills that best serve and strengthened my body, as well as had male coaches mock my pain, reward me for playing hurt and exacerbating injuries, and tell me to “man up.” This taught me that my weak woman’s body was inferior to the strong, male body, and that to be like that, I had to push through everything my body was begging me for. To be honest, I’m still wrestling with this revelation, and if you’re like me and would like more information on this rarely discussed topic, I recommend checking out this memoir by a former college athlete.
However, I am familiar with this type of church pain, because I have been a student of church hurt since I was sixteen. In the church community, we often like hearing a story once it’s complete, in other words, we like a happily ever after. We like hearing how dark, cold, and long our nights, but you better damn well have a glorious sunrise at the end of it, because what’s the point if you don’t? Why are we Christians unless we believe that goodness does come in the end?
The problem with this theory is that the end doesn’t always come on this side of heaven. The end isn’t always happy here. And sometimes, we wait months and years for the end and stop living until then. But life is so worth living even before the end. Actually, that’s the best time to live; cause our happily ever afters will be our ends when we meet Jesus. Until then, we have the joy and opportunity to live beforehand, in the middle of the once upon and the ever after. If we wait to be all healed up before we start living, we’ll never be able to. Life goes by so fast, and I refuse to spend one more day ignoring my body. I refuse to be so hard on myself that I make myself sick. And I refuse to let go of the one thing I know living for. There is no shame in asking for help, and there is no shame in being honest with yourself and trusted loved ones; I wish someone would’ve told me that. I wish someone would’ve told me a lot of things. And there’s something about learning these things ourselves that make us wiser, stronger, more self-assured, and more in love with God, maybe because I realize how much I need Her. So I think I’ll leave you with the words She’s given me.
This is not your fault; you did nothing to deserve this. I will heal you, child. And you will remember your pain no more.
Last Love 