Today (Monday 4/15) was my first therapy sessions since brain injury #3. I have an hour of vision therapy followed by an hour of speech therapy which is actually more like cognitive therapy since I can speak well. Vision therapy has surprisingly proven to be the most challenging of all therapies I have had since inpatient rehab. Today I had an issue I hadn’t previously had... I saw something in double. When I said that was strange my therapist said that “everything has changed with you getting hit on the head”. I would hear “everything has changed” more than a couple times that hour. I surmise it was most likely to make sure I got the point that this was NOT a good thing; that they wanted me to realize the dangers of my former life for my now damaged brain. Both of them begged me to reconsider doing anything that would put my already broken brain in danger of yet another insult. 

I REALLY LOVE over head movements in Crossfit like push jerks and push presses. And these are the EXACT movements those concerned about me don’t want to see me do again or at least for the foreseeable future. I also love other movements but have resigned (at least I think I have) myself to the sad fact I probably shouldn’t do them - rope climbing & hand stands to name a couple. I just have been so resistant to giving that stuff up. I don’t have to give all Crossfit up, just stuff that can potentially drop things on my head. Easy right? Well, when you’ve lost so much of yourself and what you enjoy in a short time it hurts. It hit me that it may actually go deeper than that in my heart. When I do a lift I feel strong. Yes, in my Crossfit world, I’m actually on the weak end- meaning I am surrounded by some crazy strong women that could lift double what I do. However, when I am able to complete a lift and get heavier and heavier weight I’m inching closer to the strength I lost due to the tumor that was (not so ironically) laying on my strength center of my brain. When I’m in the gym and able to do things physically, even if it hurts, I feel a kind of compensation for all the weakness and humiliation I feel in the rest of my life where as a previously fiercely independent 43 year old woman I now am not driving due to dizziness, I have sweet, amazing people making food for me because I’m not able to cook, I have to wear ear plugs in order to be around most groups of more than 2 people. I could go on but I’m not into pity parties. My point is that I want to feel strong and I guess doing that stuff, while not a big deal for others is compensation for all I’ve lost...but is it really?

This is Holy Week. The week we as Christians celebrate the most excruciating act of humbling oneself. Jesus, the God of the Universe, had humbled Himself and walked the Earth and was now subjecting Himself to death on a cross for my sin because it separated us and so that one day all this suffering I am experiencing will be untrue. He knew what it was like to experience weakness. His compensation was those that would put their trust in His sacrifice, his suffering we commemorate this week. I find it no coincidence my journey started on Good Friday and I woke up Resurrection Sunday paralyzed. The day He was no longer in the tomb, the day He was victorious over the grave I learned just how weak our bodies can be. I had a leg that was full of muscle but was useless because there was a brain that wasn’t sending it signals to work. It was for all intents and purposes dead. That’s how our hearts are without Jesus. I remember them giving me the copious amounts of steroids every few hours through the central line in my neck for a few days trying to get me to regain some feeling. It only took about 36 hours or so. I began having light electric shocks here and there I’d feel twitches and have a tiny bit of feeling and be able to wiggle something. When God brings life back to us it’s miraculous no matter whether it’s to our broken hearts or to our paralysis in our leg- life is beautiful and it’s all from Him.

I don’t like this suffering life I’m living now....not one bit. In fact, I had the four year old moment tonight where I said to my husband- “it’s not fair that everyone else can do it and just take their chances of having a barbell fall on them and I can’t” and I think I said in a raised voice “I hate it! I hate it! I hate it!” Very grown up of me eh? But I’m reminded of what the Apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 12; 9&10

9“‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’Therefore I will boast more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” 10 “For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 

So if I read these verses correctly, the copious amounts of confessing to being weak and unable to do things to people I've done lately- according to these verses I’m strong because the power of Christ is resting on me. This flies in the face of what our instinct is...don’t tell others our business or don’t let our weakness show. I’ve been led to be even more transparent in this 13 month (and counting) journey than i’ve even expected. The Lord has led me to share things that has made even me cringe a few times and I’m sure my loved ones as well. However, I could never in a million lifetimes have imagined the twists and turns it would’ve taken but the longer it’s going on the more ways I’m seeing Gods faithfulness. As I finish this I’m reminded of a song from childhood VBS days I didn’t have a church background so this was my only church exposure growing up so it meant a lot “we are weak but He is strong. Yes, Jesus loves Me, Yes, Jesus Loves Me the Bible tells me so”.