Holding Back

Last night I attended a “Mountain,” a night of fellowship and formation for FOCUS Student Leaders at NDSU. After dinner and listening to fellow students give inspiration, we spent some time with Lectio Divina, or Divine Reading. We read over this coming Sunday’s Gospel reading, meditating over how it spoke to each of us individually. For me, it spoke quite a bit.

Mark 1: 40-45

A leper came to Jesus and kneeling down begged him and said, “If you wish, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, “I do will it. Be made clean.” The leprosy left him immediately, and he was made clean. Then, warning him sternly, he dismissed him at once.

He said to him, “See that you tell no one anything, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed; that will be proof for them.”

The man went away and began to publicize the whole matter. He spread the report abroad so that it was impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly. He remained outside in deserted places, and people kept coming to him from everywhere.

Oh, where do I begin? For the sake of order, I’ll start with the beginning. “If you wish, you can make me clean.” This statement reminded me a lot of the time just before a procedure I had done over the summer of 2010. A few days before the procedure, I wrote this:

May 25, 2010

Three years. I have been suffering from chronic back pain for the past three years. I don’t know any different. Now they’re telling me there’s a way they can make some of the pain go away, but I’m not so sure I want them to take it away. I’m afraid. This back pain is a part of me now. What if I change when it goes away and not in a good way? I’m afraid. People tell me I’m a “strong person,” but I’m trying to get rid of my pain like the big baby I am. I’m afraid. What suffering will I have to offer up now? And what if I overreact to small pains because I forget what real suffering is like? To be honest, I’m afraid to be a “normal” person.

This fear was eating away at me and the night before the procedure, I struggled to get to sleep. It was then that I put my fear in God’s hands. I knew that He could heal part of my back through the procedure, but I wasn’t sure that I wanted Him to. However, I was more concerned with what He wanted than what I wanted. If He wished, He could make me clean. If it was His Will, He would heal that part of my back. I went through with the surgery, knowing that He could also make it not work. It all depended on His Will, not mine. I did nothing to prevent the success of the procedure, but was not upset when I felt no different after my time in recovery. I felt that it was God’s Will that my pain remained with me. Although I felt confident in this, those around me didn’t seem to understand. But it wasn’t their fault, because I never even mentioned it to them. This sounds absurd, but I guess it was. I had no intention of opening up to others, which leads nicely into the next part of the reading that really hit me: the last section.

Like this leper, I have been blessed with a miraculous healing. Whereas he “began to publicize the whole matter,” I pretended like it never happened in the first place. More recently, I have been trying to figure out why it is that I have kept this a secret. Some reasons have been selfish. I haven’t wanted to be seen as having a weakness in the first place. God has strengthened me spiritually, emotionally, and physically. However, my physical strength, although increased, is still less than it was before the crash ever happened. With ignoring the crash, I ignore the miracle, focusing only on the loss. This part is not what I want to share with others.

Another reason for not sharing I have found is that I have belittled my story. Even though I could easily be in a wheelchair, a vegetative state, or dead at this point, I just blow it off. I got hit by a car, big deal, right? But I’m doing alright now, so no biggie. This mentality is ridiculous! I ALMOST DIED! My rescuers were shocked that I was still alive! My doctors were shocked when I stayed alive! These people have experience that has taught them that people in my experience would not be alive. There is no scientific or logical reason that I am currently alive. To extend this even further, I am walking and running and jumping and hiking and doing all other kinds of physical movement. How could I ever blow this off as “no big deal” or anything less than a miracle?

I have started to grasp this miracle, but have one more obstacle to overcome before I can more effectively share my story: I’m not sure how to share. After living out my double-life for so long, I’m struggling with meshing my two worlds together. How does this girl whom God has brought through immense struggles relate to this college girl trying to find her way? I have been working to unify these two lives I have been living, but am still trying to figure out how to share that with those close to me. I have shared my testimony at different places, but generally to a group of people I do not know prior, people I will not be likely to see again. What about all of my friends who think they know me? How do I begin to tell them that they really don’t? I’ve reached the point that I want to tell people, I really do; I just don’t know how to bring it up. On occasion, God grants me with opportunities that I recognize, but I want to share more. I want to get His story out there.

Whatever I need to do to become more open, I am willing to do. Not for my sake, but for His. The reading talks about how “people kept coming to him from everywhere” upon hearing the leper’s story. If my story can also lead others to Jesus, why am I holding it back?

June 10, 2010

9 days after the procedure -- 3 years after the crash.

New back brace -- Same chair

Just decided I wanted to write a book to get my story out -- Weirded out by the concept of sharing