Even When It’s Hard

This one is full of truths that were difficult to hear, but the peace that surpasses all understanding has made it better.

Some of you may not have heard, but recently I fell out of a tree and badly injured myself.

So my obvious first reaction was, “I am absolutely fine!”

I was not fine.

Skip through the lovely bonfire and smores we had that night, to about 3AM. I woke up, briefly stretched and heard a horrifying snap and felt the worst pain I think I’ve ever been in in my whole life.

And that is comparing this situation to when I broke my knee.

Now, likely- any sensible person would probably scream. Or do something. But I live with 31 other people and I did not want to wake them up. Neighbors generally do not like that.

So I just… sat there in excruciating pain until like 6AM-ish when I managed to fall asleep again for a short twenty minutes, and then I managed to roll over onto my back and grab my phone. By that point, it was 6:30AM and my thought processes were, ‘It’s 6:30 AM by this point, I can wait until 7 when everyone wakes up.’

I can see your horrified faces. I can read your thoughts. I know I made a stupid decision. I am fully aware.

So I wait until 7AM, text my dear friend and team leader, and wait. She didn’t wake up til 7:13 but that’s okay because I had been waiting for three hours, what’s another fifteen-ish minutes?

So she comes over and helps me sit up (I had retained full-body mobility except for my head which I could move but it hurt too much to do so) and I get a lecture from her about how I should have called her because it didn’t matter if she was sleeping because me not dying is more important than a few hours of sleep.

I love her.

“Why didn’t you call me??”

Do you know what my response was? To people who know me well, my answer is not a surprise.

“I thought I could handle it until you woke up.”

Which– technically– I did, but that is not the point of this.

“You know I’m here for you,” was her response. And… yes, I knew that, sort of, because she’s a good friend of mine and I can come to her with many of my problems. But this was (and still sort of is) a matter of my own pride and being able to handle things by myself.

A short, necessary fun fact about me: I pride myself on my incredibly high pain tolerance. Broke my knee, waited four hours and went to see a musical before I went to the emergency. Broke my toenail for the second time in my life and continued through a dance-heavy production of Newsies and was still able to not give any hint to the audience. Did something to my neck and decided to wait for an entire night and four hours before doing anything about it. People ask me what’s one trait I love about myself and I tell them it’s my high pain tolerance.

However, just because I have a high pain tolerance doesn’t mean I can ignore these things completely.

So I go to the emergency room. The doctor tells me to stop falling out of trees. The official diagnosis is that I just sprained the muscles in my neck, right arm and shoulder pretty terribly. Nothing I will never recover from- but the disclaimer is that if it doesn’t feel significantly better in five days then I need to get an MRI. However, it’s been about a week and I do not need an MRI! Yay!

Anyway, I got the good drugs from Walgreens and Wendy’s to take them with and we drive back to campus.

“You are going to lie down and sleep,” my squad leader tells me. “I am sentencing you to tent time. Take time for yourself.”

It’s like being grounded by your parents, except you don’t have full mobility in your body and are also heavily drugged with muscle relaxers and some diclofenac (which is, funnily enough, the same medicine I got from the army base in Colorado when I broke my knee).

So I took a nap, felt better, but it’s hard getting in and out of a tent when you cannot physically bend down to do that.

Anyway, I’m feeling better now, but the point of this is what happened after.

People have had to do things for me, like get stuff from my tent, or serve dinner twice instead of rotating out with me. I’ve had to ask them to help carry my stuff to and from buildings, and as someone who is incredibly independent, I did not like it.

One of my squad leaders Aaron told me to ask the Lord what I can learn from this experience, and the answer was that I need to learn to let other people fight for me, even when I don’t think they need to, because I am not always enough to fight on my own.

And that’s… hard for me to grasp. I enjoy being enough. I enjoy being the one that other people lean on. I enjoy being able to carry my own burdens. I’m the one that makes things happen. I’m the one who likes to help others with the really tough things, and I do not easily accept help with that from other people. I don’t like to draw attention to the places I am hurting, whether that’s physical or emotional or mental or spiritual.

But I couldn’t hide this. I couldn’t hide the fact that I could not look to my right, or that I couldn’t bend down or that I couldn’t even look down to read my Bible correctly.

What to do now???

“Lean on other people,” was the response from an exasperated but all-loving God. “The people around you are here for a reason. Use them.”

Ugh, but that’s difficult!

Partly because I can do it is my life motto, but also partly because I don’t think other people will be willing to help me when I ask for it.

Wrong!

Every person on my team has actually had to forcefully tell me to let them help because I cannot do it for myself.

Like… all of them.

One day, I was tired and hurting and did not want to sit for session for two hours- even though we were learning about how to minister to Muslim people that day! And I asked God if I could go rest. He said I should, and I asked, “Will you make someone come over and ask me if I need to rest?” Because I did not want to do it for myself.

And He said no.

“You need to lean on other people and ask them before they can ask you. Step out in the boldness I have given you.”

Hmm, fine. So I asked Kyndal, who said I could sleep instead of go to session without hesitation.

Every single blog I write will feature how much I love Kyndal.

And so I slept and felt better. I took care of myself and let people help me- but I needed to ask them. God gave me these people.

It’s time I learned to accept His help, too.

Jesus died on the cross for me, and here I’ve been telling God that I can do it on my own and that He doesn’t need to help me because I’ve got it. He’s given me a strong spirit, yes, but He is still the one who makes my life what it is, so I was in the wrong for the past eighteen years about that.

On that note, there is another part of this story I need to tell you. Fundraising has been a struggle for me since the very beginning, as you know. But I’m here and my next deadline is the 15th (today).

I told the Lord, “I don’t want to miss another deadline!!! Do whatever you need to do, but please do it before the deadline this time.”

So far, He has. With processing donations, I have actually made it to $10,000. It’ll show in a few days- but I’m there!!

But none of that was me!

The only thing I’ve done is post about when my next deadline is. I sold some shirts also (which are still for sale) and got about $50 from that, but even that is from the Lord. He is giving me what I need without hesitation, but it’s a learning process because He is teaching me that I cannot raise this much money by myself. It’s been all Him helping me out.

It’s been Him telling others how to help me, too, and I thank you all so much for giving what you have.

I ask God almost every day: “What can I do towards fundraising?”

And every single time, His answer is the same: “Nothing.”

Do you know how annoying that is? It has always been ‘go get it’ rather than ‘wait on the Lord and do nothing’ because that’s just the way it is for me. And it’s hard to wait and kneel at the Father’s feet to show Him that I will wait for Him to work.

It’s also humbling, which is a whole other chicken to cross the road with, but that’s not for today.

But that’s the answer. I am not enough to raise $15,800 on my own. I never have been, and I tried to be and it took a legitimate miracle from the Lord to fix that mistake. I am to rely on Him and Him only, because that’s the only way anything will ever get done in my life. That’s the only way I can even be on this trip- if He gets it done for me.

Having help is a blessing. Adam had Eve in the Garden because man was not meant to be alone. She was a helper to him. We are meant to have help.

God wants to give me this gift of His glory raising all this money for me. However He does it and whoever He does it with is not my business. What I need to look at is the Lord loving me through this process and giving me the gift of being funded.

He is such a good God. What do you do with a God like that?

You listen when He tells you to rest, that’s what you do. You listen when He tells you to do nothing.

Even if it’s hard.