Broke Knees and Broke Hearts

Meet my friend up there, the old 15lb band. She's become my constant companion these days. Not because I'm particularly fit, no. But because apparently for a year and a half I've been wearing a chunk out of the back of my knee cap. I just found this out.

This whole debacle started quietly. Minor pains here and there. I got a little worried, but I figured it would go away with time. Plus, I was in Northern Uganda at the time, and I didn't think I'd find many Ortho specialists around. And actually it did get better-or moreso my body adapted to make movements less painful. (I had no idea my brain could call these kinds of shots without my consent, seems a little disrespectful to me, but it did anyway.) It would only come up every now and then, I'd self medicate, diagnose and carry on. Easy.

That worked for a while. Until the adjustment broke down-and in the worst ways. In a matter of a few weeks I essentially became a 65-year-old woman who couldn't sit or stand anywhere for very long. I also noticed a HUGE imbalance in my glutes from this *cue monkey covering eyes emoji*. The adjustments my body made on it's own had completely thrown off everything hip down. Excellent.

So, possibly more out of vanity than anything else- I drug my sorry behind to the doctor for them to explain all of this to me. In my attempts to avoid a smaller injury, I created a worse one. And now I get to sit in PT twice a week plus four-time at home daily sessions. WOWWWW Emily. Great work sweetie.

But isn’t this how we treat healing our hearts?

We ignore the pains pinging at us through life. We adjust-knowingly or not- to avoid them.

Avoid that person.

Avoid that subject.

Pretend it didn’t really happen that way.

And yea, that works fine, until one day when you’re not in charge you come face to face with the linchpin of your pain. And what was flagging you to heal before has now become bitterness with branches reaching into the other rooms of your life you thought you could compartmentalize. What was an incident has now grown into insecurity that informs all your decisions, not just where it started.

When the doctor signed me a PT slip and an indefinite bill, I wondered what inner unresolved pains were going to cost me.

No, they were never going to be free. No, it’s probably not even your fault. But something isn’t healed until you can touch it without a flinch. And the longer you wait to rehabilitate your heart, the longer your heart will learn to believe it’s not possible.

" Something isn't healed until you can touch it without a flinch."

I like Jesus because he had scars. Pretty visible ones too. One’s that came off to a lot of people as weakness. I think a lot of us don’t want to heal because wounds-wounds we can hide. Wounds we’re pretty good at covering up. But scars, scars are harder to hide. Why? Well because sometimes we forget they are there. We forget to hide them. And some of us don’t want people to see for fear they may think we’re weak.

But let me tell you something:

The moment you see my scars is the moment you can know I did the hard work. The moment you think “she’s weaker than I thought” is when you can rest assured I chose the healing path over the people pleasing one. When those shiners come out Ima’ wear em like jewelry. Because...my wore out knee taught me my butt will be uneven if I don't heal? Yes!- but also, I’d rather walk real and healed than impressive and broken.

Healing is never easy and rarely immediate. It's a collection of victories in the minutia. It's a spiritual campaign against the learned brokeness of your past. Jackie Hill Perry tweeted this about it this week:

It's not a game. But ignoring it does come at a greater cost. Closing the door on healing is oftentimes closing the door on the chance for redemption-closing the door on testimony.

Some things will never heal in this lifetime, that is true. But you can.