Now, almost two months ago, I ran through the forest on a particularly beautiful spring afternoon. The trail was bordered by tiny wildflowers. Sleepy trees groaned as they worked out the stiffness of their limbs, awakening from a long winter's nap. It was glorious.
The route was easy to follow, having been pounded down by thousands of feet passing before me through the years, the path weaving its way over the hills and through the woods. Even the roots of trees artistically formed organic staircases up the slopes, not to block my way or hinder my steps, but to give me a foothold, a grip, and traction for my ascent.
But quite suddenly, on a rather flat non-descript part of the path, I tripped. No rocks, no roots, nothing in my way, but I was lost in thought and not paying attention. I fell hard like a bag of mulch, skidding full body in the dirt to a stop. If I were a cartoon character, I would have had stars rotating above my head and X's on my eyes. I crawled up to my feet almost immediately, a little shaken and somewhat chagrined, but all movable parts still intact, my favorite leggings untorn, and both my knees scraped like a third grader on the school playground. I brushed off the dust and twigs, and enjoyed the short remainder of the trail at a much slower pace.
But the next morning, swelling indicated something was not right. A visit to the doctor revealed a broken bone in my right hand. I was given a brace to constrain my range of motion to help with the healing, but limiting my mobility, more than I would have imagined. Some ordinary things I could manage with this claw-like contraption strapped with Velcro to my hand. But even in simple tasks, I was embarrassingly dependent on the help of others.
As a right handed writer, having my right hand incapacitated put a strait jacket on my writing. With the brace wrapped around most of my hand, I was able to hold a pen precariously between my thumb and my index finger, but my handwriting was excruciatingly slow and almost indecipherable.
I was never more aware of how much I do with my right hand, and how little I use my left. Brushing my teeth with my other hand, trying to flip an egg with a spatula, or even pulling up my socks with my left hand only, should have qualified me for an Olympic sport. Ordinary actions were not so ordinary anymore.
Throughout those six weeks with the brace, I stopped throughout each day and considered "What is a different way to do this?" Or out of sheer necessity, "How can I approach this differently?"
Instead of limiting me, I found my disability enlarging my thoughts. I was not unlearning how to do things, but instead learning another way through.
Automatically reaching out with my right hand was my default, as if that was the only way to do something, not even thinking about my actions or reactions. Which is mostly the way I hurt myself in the first place --not thinking about what I was doing, where I was going, definitely a pothole of my own transgressions.
On what other things am I on automatic pilot? How can I do this differently? How can I think with another perspective on this? Is my default limiting me? Is my attitude getting in the way of who, what, where, when, why and how I treat this work, this relationship, this problem to be solved or resolved?
All the while my hand was healing, even while the brace restricted my movement, new neural pathways were coming into existence in this old brain of mine, revealing new passages, open doors, incredible connections between unrelated things, not so much newly created as discovered. Those new trailheads were always there, but I just didn't realize I could take another trail through that difficulty, taking me on a different journey toward another outcome. There is something different here. "Behold, I make all things new." (Revelation 21. 5)
I am no longer caught up in this one thing I do, but on the other hand.....What if I thought about this differently, approached this roadblock, traversed this boulder-strewn path, followed God's scarlet thread through this impenetrable thicket? What if I tried....? "But I have always done it this way," my thin excuses fade even more. My "I can't" is revealed to be more like "I won't even try."
But this time, I was forced into a shattering of my deeply dug ruts. Not "What are you going to do now?" but "How are you going to do it?"
A counselor friend once told me, "People do what works for them...until it doesn't work any more."
Even the smallest detail done differently shifts ever so slightly the tectonic plates of my heart. And through those microscopic cracks in my stubborn pride, I begin to hear His quiet whisper, "Follow Me."
O LORD, what is Your way in this?
For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways My ways,
says the LORD.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are My ways higher than your ways
and My thoughts than your thoughts.
Isaiah 55. 8-9
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