Today's church sermon really stuck with me:
"God's fire burns wet wood."
Even if you're not religious, I think these are truly beautiful words. I think at my own life - and all the times I have felt just like that - like wet wood. Too broken for fixing. Too dejected to go on. To beat down to think good things would come out of the mess that is life, sometimes. How many times in my life do I think those words would have been applicable! I wish someone had told me them long ago.
The mysteries in life, sometimes, seem too great to wonder. Things fall into place that you only see when the big picture comes together, but all the small pieces fitting into place feel hardly noteworthy, scarcely noticeable at times. And how easy it is to feel broken down by our trials and tribulations.
This has certainly given me a lot to ponder over the last few hours. I think often of the work that I do, why I felt called to healthcare, and how I find my place in the world where I feel that I am making a difference and doing something important. There comes a time in our lives where I think we start to wonder when all of the questioning, thoughts, and ideas swirling in nonformed patterns in our head come together into something tangible with which we carry on our lives.
In this present moment, though, I am grateful for all of the lessons that have been taught to me in 25 years. There was a time 5 years ago where I sat at my kitchen sink, unsure of where my life was going, unsure of whether I'd make it into school and where I was supposed to go from there and what I was supposed to do with the mound of heartbreak and other misfortune I carried at the time. Something I always marvel on in my life is how I feel I have always been carried through those difficult times - in spite of so many obstacles, questions, and hurdles and hurdle, there was always been some way in which to trial through and press onwards. And furthermore, I always seem to possess an almost inextinguishable fire in which to push through these things. As much as I find my own trials difficult, as I'm sure we can all call to mind events and circumstances in our lives that have evoked this same feeling in us, I love that my own difficulties have changed my heart in many ways that I feel, are changes for the better. In little ways - thinking twice about what one of my own patients is going through. Considering the emotional and mental ramifications of illness, and the amount of strength and capacity for perseverance that a person must develop or prepossess in order to overcome it. The lessons on compassion it has taught me. The lessons in humility - feeling that the very thing that makes me human, that the body that I rely on - has failed me, and the disappointment and fear that causes you to feel. Being previously health but then suddenly needing something that is oftentimes difficult to get, to keep you alive. The humility of having to rely on the kindness of others or seemingly happenstance but remarkable provisions to help you get through on a month to month basis. I suppose the lesson is, that even in our darkest moments, we are undergoing changes within ourselves or learning things that get us closer to who we are supposed to be, or equip us to help or connect with someone else somewhere along their own journey.
I was working with a patient last week, who is very young for being in a nursing home, and whom I've worked with earlier that year during another visit. This was my first day on this particular visit working with them - other therapists had worked with them the past month, with little progress having been made. No walking. No standing. Not even being able to get out of bed without a lift. We were in the parallel bars, and I was listening to them crying, very obviously anxious, about trying to walk. They had the strength - there is no technical reason why they shouldn't be able to - but something was holding them back. I wouldn't say this to every patient, nor would I seek to interject my own experiences on them to make it seem like I am lessening their own difficulties - but having known this patient pretty well from before, I looked at them, and I asked them, "I know you're scared, but what is the alternative?"
They looked at me. "Being in a wheelchair..."
"Right," I said. "When I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, needles were my biggest fear. I cried as a teenager every time I had to get shots or lab work. I couldn't have imagined anything worse than being diagnosed with an illness that required me to confront my biggest fear daily. And yet I was. And I was angry. But more than that, I was scared. Terrified. I didn't think I could possibly do it.
But then someone else close to me asked me, "what is the alternative?" And the only answer I had for that was dying. Because that was the only alternative, if I didn't find a way to get stronger and overcome my fear. And so I learned, little by little, and I taught myself, to overcome this. No matter how hard it was - I learned to be stronger.
I know you're afraid, but overcoming your fear is so much greater than living the alternative. I know that was the case for me, and I promise you that that will be the case for you, if you try. So please try. I know you can do this."
I would like to say the patient just got out of their wheelchair and could magically walk perfectly without help after that, but that wasn't the case. But they did stand. And they did walk. Albeit it wasn't pretty, but they did it. Twice. And that moment really touched me. In that moment, I did feel that my own struggles with anxiety, fear, pain, and the loneliness and isolation of illness equipped me to truly help somebody. And the next day I had them walking further, getting in and out of bed on their own, standing up from a mat - and that was such a good feeling. To have overcome something to be able to lend my own experience to help somebody else.
God's fire burns wet wood. Things we don't understand - the bad, the scary, the painful, the tragic - these things, while not good, can in miraculous ways be used for good. And we, in the midst of feeling broken and run down - we can rediscover the sparks that keep us going. We can find deeper strength. We can become people that spread goodness.
This is a reminder I believe we all can use, from time to time. I know I can.
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