So, after I got injured, I thought I should start a blog or try and share about my journey through this injury for some reason. And I have done a horrible job at blogging……LOL. The first step in starting a blog is to name it, so for whatever reason I came up with “Broken 4 Purpose”. As time went on, I really started to despise the name and have constantly tried to understand what I was thinking (was I thinking) when I landed on that name. I started asking questions like, was I broken purposely? Did God paralyze me on purpose? I needed all the neurological nerve pain and discomfort? This happened for a reason? My family needed to be flipped upside down? My boys needed a Dad in a wheelchair? The easy answer to all the questions was, NO!!
What I have come to realize is that grief and broken times take us to a broken state, and broken mindset, and will emotionally brake us. This can be due to loss, physical sickness, injury, or through various situations. In these times of brokenness and hardship, is when we have the greatest opportunity for personal growth as our guard can be down. Why is that? Brokenness from my experience has always tended to slow me down and allowed me to look in the mirror and look at my life and what I’m facing, I can no longer run. Kind of like Jonah and the whale where God physically had to slow him down from running from what he was called to do, so he had him swallowed by a whale. Talk about taking time and looking at life differently, could you imagine what was going on in his head and the conversations he was having with himself and God??
COVID, what did that cause everyone to do? STOP! There was no escaping home, life, or emotions. We all had a lot of time looking at life and circumstances created a lot of anxiety. And now we are in a mental health crisis, “Both SARS-CoV-2 and the COVID-19 pandemic have significantly affected the mental health of adults and children. In a 2021 study, nearly half of Americans surveyed reported recent symptoms of an anxiety or depressive disorder, and 10% of respondents felt their mental health needs were not being met.”*
Why?
I have come to realize that it is each individual’s choice once we realize we are dealing with grief, brokenness, or life is how we handle the brokenness and discomfort that we are dealing with. Whether it is brokenness because of something we did, or maybe a brokenness because of something we had no control over. The key here is how we decide to let that impact us and more importantly, the choice we make on how we decide to handle our grief/brokenness, and how we move forward. Do we stay true to ourselves and our character? Do we start looking outside of our character for comfort, escapes, and just anything new or different that would take our mind off the brokenness that we are dealing with?
There are many things out there that are offered and available to help one escape. For example, could be keeping our schedule so busy that we don’t have to think about what is looking at us, there are always substances out there, do we look for new social groups, or do we fill it with extracurricular activities? Or do we do the hard thing, do we look at our grief/loss and the discomfort it is causing and allow ourselves to possibly sit there in it. To question why we are hurting and why it hurts so much. What are we supposed to learn from this? Can we admit we are not ok?
“Can we accept that it is OK to not be OK because of maybe a situation and or circumstance that we’re dealing with that it is hard and maybe it’s a life-changing impactful event that we don’t know how to deal with? “The problem with this is this is not what we see in the movies or what our social media and other media influences tell us. I feel like we are constantly being told that there are only two options in loss and grief: you’re either going to be stuck in your pain, doomed to spend the rest of your life rocking in a corner in your basement, or you’re going to triumph over grief, be transformed, and come back even better than you were before”.** Come out even better than before…….
Our society doesn’t focus on the journey, they focus on a redemption story of what has your experience, pain, or brokenness turned you into? What type of motivational speaker have you become, what is your grandiose “new” opportunity allowed you to conquer, become, and do? This person who has the same injury is doing this…. End of the day, we all are trying to survive through whatever grief, loss, or pain we are dealing with. And sometimes that seems like its not enough.
So, I have recently come to the realization that over my 10 years for myself and many people, it has not been OK for me to not be OK with being paralyzed and that I am still navigating this injury. I was told by a therapist early on that there were 5 stages to grief and my injury – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. I just need to work through them and get to the point of accepting that I’m now paralyzed and life at 40 is never going to be the same. And if I couldn’t get through those stages in roughly 6 months, I was pretty much broken.
In trying to move forward with the realization of being paralyzed and move forward with the mental fortitude and strength that it takes daily because everyone around you is telling you, “Mark you should be OK by now it’s been so much time since you were injured. Why is this still bothering you?”. Trying to move on in this state and trying to be OK with it, has broken me down. I must also acknowledge that I know Sarah and the boys have had to battle the same but different emotions and feelings in dealing with a paralyzed husband and dad and all the changes and challenges that I will never fully understand and trying to manage the fact it is ok not being okay with it.
“Can anyone really expect to recover from such tragedy, considering the value of what was lost and the consequences of that loss? Recovery is a misleading and empty expectation. We recover from broken limbs, not amputations. Catastrophic loss by definition precludes recovery. It will transform us or destroy us, but it will never leave us the same. There is no going back to the past, which is gone forever, only going ahead to the future, which has yet to be discovered. Whatever that future is, it will, and must include the pain of the past with it. Sorrow never entirely leaves the souls of those who have suffered a severe loss. If anything, it may keep going deeper”.***
So, what is this post about, when you are broken, the correct response is to be broken. Let’s let go of the idea of perfection — we are not perfect, we are real. Let’s be flawed and allow ourselves to be okay with not being okay. We’re only human! If it took COVID to get me and society to admit this, so be it, and for me, it has brought me back to my savior and the reassurance in knowing he loves me. And he loves you!
Broken4Purpose = I know now that in my brokenness I can still find purpose, this did not happen on purpose. It was an accident, an unfortunate situation, and the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Being brave—being a hero—is not about overcoming what hurts or turning it into a gift. Being brave is about waking to face each day when you would rather just stop waking up. Being brave is staying present to your own heart when that heart is shattered into a million different pieces and can never be made right. Being brave is standing at the edge of the abyss that just opened in someone’s life and not turning away from it, not covering your discomfort with a pithy “think positive” emoticon. Being brave is letting pain unfurl and take up all the space it needs. Being brave is telling that story”.**
Suffering can strengthen our faith James1:2-4
God can use suffering to call us to repentance Luke 15:4
Suffering can come from our choices Proverbs 13:20
If we suffer for righteousness, we will be blessed 1 Peter 3:14
** It’s OK That You’re Not OK: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn’t Understand –by Megan Devine (Author), Mark Nepo (Foreword)
*** A Grace Disquised – by Jerry L. Sittser (Author)
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