How many of us grew up reading Laura Numeroff’s picture book ‘If You Give A Mouse A Cookie’?
Well, if you take a clumsy person to the mountains then there will be some injury.
Logically, yes, this seems a plausible scenario. Or, at least, more conceivable than a mouse who asks for milk after you give him a cookie.
Ah, it seems like only yesterday, I was climbing precarious rocks, walking across fallen trees, and jumping off mountain railings. Oh, maybe that’s because it was only yesterday!
Despite all my attempts to test my klutzy limits, for five whole days, my accident-prone self was injury-free.
Today, though, I am staring at x-rays. Today, I am calculating the hours, minutes and seconds that equate to six weeks. Today, I am imprisoning my leg in a brace that is most unbecoming. Today, I am leaving on crutches that have already bruised my armpits.
Today, much has changed.
My sweet PA tried to commiserate, “Just think, when you return for x-rays I will have had my baby!”
Apparently, a lot can happen in six weeks.
Waiting at the DMV to pick up my handicapped parking pass, I tried to contemplate the logistics of basic tasks.
Suddenly, Julie Andrews is singing ‘My Favorite Things’ and I am mentally listing every activity I can’t participate in; exercising, dancing, biking to class, a roller-blading social and more.
I am an invalid, like Sam Claflin in ‘Me Before You,’ except I am not his royal hotness, THE Sam Claflin and Emilia Clarke won’t be there to cheer me up in her crazy outfits.
Fine, I am being melodramatic (what’s new), but I was spiraling in that DMV waiting room.
Leg elevated, but still throbbing, I attempted to collect my erratic emotions. I chased each feeling down, pinned it to the ground and demanded a response to this unexpected hiccup.
That night, anxious musings kept sleep at bay. Peering into the darkness of my bedroom, I looked for some clue as to why?
Why did my shoe catch on a curb and body slam me into a concrete sidewalk? Why did I land squarely on and fracture my knee? For goodness sakes, I was in a church parking lot!
Then I realized I was asking the wrong question; instead of why, I should’ve been asking, for what purpose?
Sure, I am thankful that my injury was at the end of our trip and that I have friends willing to lend a helping hand. Yet, I still needed to see a grander design.
If you think I had a wonderful a-ha moment that night then ha, certainly not.
Days later, fresh off a full day of classes and trekking across campus on my crutches, I had a breakthrough.
Exhausted, I felt tears trickle down my cheeks as I realized what God wanted me to see.
I have trust issues, lean heavily on my own self-sufficiency and struggle to give Him control.
So He gave me an injury, pathetically acquired and seemingly purposeless, to teach me how to lean heavily on Him and community.
He put me in a brace to show me that I can stubbornly limp onward with my plans or let Him hold me fast as He reveals His.
Hosea wrote that God “will make the Valley of Trouble a door of hope” (2:15).
Maybe you have also descended from the mountaintop into the valley.
The valley is treacherous because it threatens to make us forget what we experienced on the mountain.
What brace has God put you in to get your attention?
Listen to His voice, the whistling wind through the valley that makes you look up at the mountains ahead.