that forever stole from me my ability to walk correctly.
By the time the day came to a close, I was lying in a drug-induced coma, my parents in shock and without promise of my waking. I didn't open my eyes for 7 more days. My body and brain proceeded to remain in a deathly state of sleep for the entire following week, that of which I have no memory of.
I lapsed in and out of sleep on the 7th day, yet somehow I can recall waking up, only for a few moments at a time, though. My memories of these occurrences are fuzzy and I am unsure of the chronological order, but one of the first memories I have of waking up is being surrounded by doctors as they tried to remove my ventilator, in order to help me try to be able to breathe on my own. But I did not understand that these men were doctors, that as my body choked and gagged on both the ventilator and my first breaths of air that they were not trying to harm me, and that as I intended to swing a fist at them in hopes to protect myself, the absence of motion in my limbs was not because I was tied down as I believed, it was because I was paralyzed.
The remainder of that summer was spent on achieving different goals than what my 11 year old self had originally planned: producing sound out of audible level, holding silverware in my hand in order to feed myself, and recalling the names of my friends and any series of words given to me by the therapists.
Time and physical therapy were generous in helping me relearn how to walk, not well, but enough to kiss the wheelchair goodbye. I was miraculously alive; however, my body was not obeying fully in the recovery process. The human body is incredible in the way that it automatically compensates for any area of it that is lacking. But over time, as every fiber of my frame worked to perform the task of walking, the rest of my body that was being strained, overworked, or neglected began to misalign. I am now heavily reaping the multiplying repercussions of years with an improper walk.
For years, people of great faith would lay hands on me and pray for me to be rid of my inability to walk right and the pains throughout my body that follow suit, but nothing ever happened. My sweet parents asked God for it every day and still do, but I never got any better. Wonderful-hearted people in churches would form circles around me and simply ask God for healing.
But God never healed me.
And here I am, 12 years later, still strapping on a leg brace every morning and trying to make it through the day without my youthful body aching with elderly pains.
During my years of wrestling the beasts of depression, ever-so-sneaky thoughts of suicide, self-hatred, and fears of the future, the idea of "surrendering oneself and one's dreams" to God sounded like basically giving up on those dreams and letting them die - a thought that I think only fed my depression, thus
growing the beast in size. All I wanted was to be able to walk "normal" again. I cried about every night before sleeping. But ever since I actually made room for God in my life and in my ever-growing story, I have ironically become nothing but more and more passionate, the opposite of my expectations. My dreams never had to die, they just sort of shifted onto other things- passions that only keep MULTIPLYING and INCREASIN
in intensity. I get to create and invent so much and have the opportunity to use my gifts all the time in such unique and lovely ways. I am more passionate than I ever have been in my life, and am still discovering more ways to beautifully use my hands, my voice, my brain. We are products of the most creative Being in the entire universe.
The future of my physical body will be forever affected by the event which took place on this day. But looking back on these past 12 years, I see that He has been weaving my old longings into much, much bigger passions. So much so that I forgot about ever longing for this disability to be gone, even the words themselves have lost their flavour. I have been too distracted by passions and different desires for it to even be of interest to me really. Reviewing such a sentence, I am speechless. Who could ever do such a thing but the One responsible for my design? What an honour it is to even be a small spot in his eye. If I could ever give anyone anything, it would be to whoever is reading this such a newness that He has created in me.
(Isaiah 49:13) "See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland."
