Boots are in style, but not this one

I waited a week, and then another.  Just a few more days, I thought.  My foot is feeling much better, I surmised.  No problem, I thought, as I limped across the Target parking lot.  Finally, I asked others to pray for my foot to heal.  I could see unspoken words streaming across their thoughts like the banner on the tv screen while the broadcaster is talking about something else.  "Pray for healing?  You did this to yourself!"

The doctor is not going to tell me anything new, my stubborn heart determined.  I just need to rest my foot. It will get better on its own.  I stopped running.  I ceased even going for casual walks.  I wore shoes with laces.

And still, it hurt.

Yet, I refused to pick up the phone to make a doctor's appointment, a waste of time and money, I justified.

Four weeks crawled by.  I limped across the family room on Sunday evening.

If I want things to be different, something has to change.

Perhaps I just need to be willing
           to try something else,
to open my stubborn heart
       to Your quiet voice
that leads me by still waters
and makes me to lie down in green pastures
         where it may make no sense at all to me.
It is not so much that my options are bleak,
but I have closed off my heart
            to Your possibilities, O LORD.
You lead me to my own personal Red Sea,
           waves lapping around my ankles.
Am I willing to follow You
    even through a valley of deep darkness,
    even through a place where
                    my feet don't touch bottom?
            Even there, O LORD?
And in this impossible
                       and very improbable situation,
     You heal my wounded places,
             hurts that I didn't even know.
You pinpoint the pain.
It is not my foot,
            but a heart condition.
The diagnosis:
       an aggravated case of stubbornness.
And everything else aligns from that.
I seek You for one little pain,
     and a thousand others take that opportunity
                to line up too,
      a queue for triage,
            knowing now my need
            not for surgery
                      but a fresh anointing.
I focus on the symptoms.
           But God heals my heart.
I place my problem
                      my pain
       even my stubbornness before Him.
Am I as willing to press
                    the "submit" button?
I recognize my pride
      in whatever clever disguise it has taken now,
and let the healing begin.
There is no fracture, the doctor diagnosed,
       but a peroneal tendon strain,
         just an overuse injury.
And yet, I also receive a deeper diagnosis of pride,
    trying to do life without God's help.
           "Oh, I've got this under control,"
        when I have no idea what to do,
 not letting God in on this pain,
    when He has been waiting all along to heal.
And now,
        I am wearing a boot of another color,
     clomping around like a noisy pirate,
          eating a big slice of humble pie.

If I want things to be different,
       something has to change.

And that would be my heart.

If My people
      who are called by My name
humble themselves,
and pray
and seek My face,
and turn from their wicked ways,
then
    I will hear from heaven,
and will forgive their sin
             and heal their land.

                     2 Chronicles 7.14