It’s 3:19am and I can’t sleep. I set my phone to go off at midnight and switch back on in the morning. This means I can’t use it in the middle of the night to check the time. I thought really hoped it was morning when I woke up. It was but it wasn’t. It was 1:30am, not the kind of morning I wanted.
I find that I am impatient with and often even get angered at weakness and wounds. It’s a dilemma because I also really believe in and desire grace. Why then won’t I accept that in certain spaces I shall be weak perhaps even unto my death? Why do I have such a need to fix everything?
I’m currently dealing with a cold and have woken up the past three days with my throat on fire, each morning worse than the one before. It’s the first thing I notice when my eyes open, the pain in my throat and the discomfort in my body. I was disappointed this morning as I have been before, why isn’t it gone yet? How is it that this cold persists? We have thrown so much at it. I’m pretty sure my blood is currently at 80% dawa tea and flu medicines and the other 20% for whatever else makes up blood.
On 26th July, 2019 somewhere between 11pm and midnight, I was involved in a motorbike accident. I like the usage of the word involved like it was voluntary. As if when making my itinerary for the day I figured falling off a motorbike and scaring the living daylights out of my loved ones was a fun thing to do. I digress. I do not have memory of the incident. All I know is what I have been told. I hit my head, blacked out and was bleeding out in the middle of the road. That was obviously the scariest of my injuries. A head injury is not something to be taken lightly. I lost some hair to get a few stitches that evening, my first ever. Somehow I had managed to go my entire life without getting stitches. I remember waking up the morning after and realising I did not remember a single thing between deciding to get on the bike and waking up with my hair being shaved off. I am told that I was in and out of consciousness and even said some things but I remember nothing.
There was a seemingly less serious injury whose effects I still carry to this day. The injury to my right knee. I woke up the next morning in excruciating pain. Everything that could hurt, hurt. I didn’t understand how I had managed to hit the back of my head and the front of my knee all in one fall. My brother had asked about my knee and the doctor said it was a soft tissue injury and would heal on its own in no time. It was just small cuts and the beginnings of what would later become a rather serious swelling.
Dear Doctor, you lied. My knee has been hurting this week. I have needed the usage of a bandage and knee support to do what used to be the most basic thing, walking. I was pretty active when I was in school. I wasn’t athlete of the year active but I was more active than your average teenager. I am no stranger to injuries. The doctor was right, they usually just heal on their own. This one didn’t. This one hasn’t. It has improved over time, just not as quickly as I wanted. I’m still walking with a limp on most days. I still need to get up and stretch after being immobile for a while. I still need a great deal of support and cushioning to do something as simple as kneeling. I sure could use a miracle one of these days.
At the beginning of December 2020, I went away for 4 days and 3 nights in the first ever Warrior Women’s Weekend with The Usual Suspects. I am still processing that experience. It was without a doubt one of the biggest highlights of my year. One of these days, I shall write about it. I asked a question on one of the nights while we were having our campfire conversations.
“Where do the men go to heal?” . It was a women’s weekend but there were some gentlemen present. The question was directed at the gentlemen.
I’ve always heard that men are not very good with emotions. It has often made me wonder if they ever feel anything outside of attachment to gadgets, cars, sexual desire and anger. I have known men to be more vocal about their love for their sports teams than people. I know men love people, I just wonder what the experience is like for them. I know men feel pain and get hurt in some unimaginable ways because the world we live in is fallen. I know how I deal with pain. It’s unpleasant but necessary because an unattended to wound can become cancerous. It will eat at you in ways that won’t always be obvious. I have more experience seeing women deal with pain. Where do the men go to heal? I know they’re not impervious to this life.
I asked because one, there are many men I love that I want to see live their best lives and I’m often at a loss about how to help. I also asked because as life would have it, some have bled on me and it has hurt. It annoys me because it feels out of my control. I can take charge of my own healing and like the cold, throw everything available to me at it. I can’t do much about someone else’s healing however regardless of how much I want to. It doesn’t matter how much I love or want to love them. God was serious when he gave us freewill.
I find that I am impatient with weakness and brokenness especially in myself. I find that it is rooted in my desire to control everything. Despite my best efforts, I really cannot save myself. Despite my best desires and intentions, I cannot save anyone else.
So, what now?
Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
2 Corinthians 12:8-9 NKJV