Thanksgiving is a very North American holiday. The BFA community celebrates it for a month – first Canadian Thanksgiving, a couple weeks later dorm Thanksgiving, and this past week was full of American Thanksgiving celebrations. We don’t get any official days off, but the English speakers get together and eat lots of food. Last weekend, I celebrated American Thanksgiving with my family group as we all gathered and ate and even shared some thoughts on giving thanks. We all wrote down five things we were thankful for this year and five things that we’d struggled with this year. It wasn’t hard for several people to connect that many things on the struggle side had directly led to the things on the thankful side.
That will forever be my story as the greatest struggle I’ve ever faced is this long, slow, occasionally painful, always inconvenient recovery from my accident nearly two years ago, and yet I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Because of this huge struggle, I’ve made some incredible jumps in my own emotional healing from trauma in high school, I’ve learned to become more empathetic to the struggles both seen and unseen of those around me, and I’ve made some incredible friendships that would have never happened without this accident.
Most of all, I’m humbled with the gift of teaching students this Christian Essentials curriculum that may not have been offered to me without my accident. This past week I was blessed again to have students come to me with a desire to learn more about their belief system and take ownership of ideas. I had one student last week who after class told me she wanted to know more about Jesus but she didn’t like reading anything, let alone the Bible; she asked me to teach her to be excited about reading the Bible, so we’re going to have nacho night with another student at my house where I’ll read the Bible out loud (because anyone who’s seen me read the Bible out loud knows I can’t help but get excited).
Without my accident, I would have still taught these kids English and had an amazing go of it, but this is such a gift to share my passion for the Word who became flesh in this context. This is why I’m here.
My life is full of incredible gifts. This Thursday I got to skype with several family members and close friends, and through the wonder of the internet, I even got to see my best friend’s new baby boy who was born a week ago. Friday night I was able to hang out with Jo who has become one of my best friends since meeting him in rehab. Saturday I spent some time practicing my German by reading passages from the Bible to my Swiss student who corrected my pronunciation when necessary while she cleaned my apartment for me.
I don’t want to undo anything that has been done in my life; I still want to walk again.
I’m very careful in my phrasing – there’re no “buts” in my desires. I don’t want to not have any of the incredible blessings in my life. Let me try that without the double negative – I want it all. I want all the good gifts I’ve been given, and I’ll still ask for more.
I still want to walk.
The winter months are harder to practice my walking with the damaged nerve function because I get random spasms more frequently in the cold that try to turn my ankles as they are strapped into my braces. It makes walking difficult, awkward, and occasionally painful. It’s frustrating to me because it looks like regression. I’m still capable of so much more than I was a year ago, but I’m walking less frequently than I was a month ago. I still have more strength and stamina, but the cold weather means I have to fight harder for the muscles to move every morning.
I still believe I could wake up tomorrow with restored function, and I’ll continue to hope for that every day. I’ll keep working hard with what I have, but I’m asking you to beg God with me for new function this week.
“But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;
his mercies are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
‘The LORD is my portion,’ says my soul,
‘therefore I will hope in him.'”
Lamentations 3:21-24
