The Middle.

Oh man.  I'm zapped. I'm just going to write down every thing I'm thinking, without a lot of filtering, so it might get long.  All I know is that today was a huge day, and I have to write it all down before I forget.

Today was a turning point for me.  I did have both of my casts removed today, with only one replaced, and it went very well.  God is so incredibly good to me.  When we got to the hospital, we found out that my doctor called in sick, so I was to be attended by his residents.  That's cool with me because three of them were there during the surgery.  The casts were removed for x-rays, and I headed in to get rayed.  I told them that they were going to need the longer plates to set my legs on, but they didn't believe me.  Then they cheerfully told me (once they realized that the smaller ones wouldn't work with the long plates in my leg) that, next time, I should tell them that they would need the longer plates.  Know what I learned in that moment?  Submission.  I just said, "Okay!" as kindly as I could.  One of the technicians recognized me from the night that I had come into the emergency room, and we got to chatting.  I wish that I had said something more substantial to her because God has truly done a great work in my life.  I couldn't say anything more than just the fact that I am so blessed.

Today.  I looked at my legs.  For the first time since I fell, I looked at my legs.  Even after I had fallen, I refused to look down at them because I just didn't want to know what they looked like.  Pictures have been taken, documentation will one day be posted to this blog, but I refused to see them until today.  It was the first turning point for me.

Then I had my legs scrubbed by the casting man that was in Las Vegas when I was there last.  It felt so good.  Unfortunately, I'm what you might call a "picker" - I pick at anything that will come off or out of my body.  Scabs, zits, other gross body things...it's gross, I know, but I can't help it.  So I had to work hard not to pick at the dry skin flaking off of my legs.  I made friends with the lady that had done my black casts, and was so relieved when she came into the room.  Cast man wasn't friendly, and I'm overly sensitive.  His job is hard, I know.  And he was probably really stressed out.  But I like cast lady so much better.  She let me have extra wash rags to rub my legs with after cast man missed a few spots.  I nearly rubbed them raw.  One scab was green, and cast lady showed me that I could just pick it off.  Sweet, huh?

The conversation in the casting room was so sad to me, it broke my heart.  An older man in a car accident, a young woman with undeveloped legs who had just had surgery, a man who had fallen on the ice...I didn't know how to convey hope to them.  It's so hard because I want to just roll up to each of them and tell them I'm praying for them, and ask them questions, and give them hugs, and offer hope.  I didn't know how.  There was an awkward silence that I couldn't seem to fill, and I think it's because I may have been trying to fill it on my own.  I prayed yesterday that my conversations would make people thirsty for Jesus, but I don't think anyone wanted to talk.  So I tried to listen without eavesdropping, and I will continue to pray for each of those people.

After the intern my age moved my feet around (a lot), I found out that my doctor was, in fact, coming in even though he was sick.  I was relieved because I had never met the intern that was moving my feet around, and it was weird.  But anyway, my sick doctor came in, and I was glad to see him.  He said that x-rays looked WONDERFUL!  Isn't that amazing?  The fractures are healing beautifully, and he seemed so excited, despite being sick.  I am so thankful, and I couldn't stop smiling.  So, I got a boot for my right leg, and a candy cane cast on my left.  I have it for another month, and then I'll get that one off as well.  Physical therapy starts on the right leg, but mostly for movement & flexibility: standing and walking have to wait a little longer.

After that, I hit another turning point: my first pee in a public bathroom as a person in a wheelchair.  It was crazy, and no matter what people may say, they are not truly wheelchair accessible.  It was incredibly eye-opening.  I'm just thankful for my mom and dad, yet again.  I needed a lot of help.

Hopped in the car, grabbed some lunch, stopped by a few houses to say hello (not as many as I wish I could have, but super-fun), armed ourselves with Starbucks, and we were off. 

Now I'm home.

I took my boot off tonight and saw that my foot looked really swollen.  It hit me.  Hard.  I started to freak out a little.  Then it snowballed.  I should have just taken a Percoset to settle down, but I am petrified that my stitches are going to rip open while I'm thrashing around in my sleep, as I so often do, and I want to be able to tell if that happens.  I can't sleep with my boot on because it cuts into my calve muscle, and cuts off circulation.  So, I put the inner sleeve on after much panicking and whining.  My poor mom.  My dad wasn't home at the time, and I was just freaking out in my chair.  I couldn't get comfortable.  So, we took the sleeve out, iced it, and popped in a movie (too early for bed...)

It worked for, like 30 minutes, and then I started freaking out again.  "The sleeve isn't fitting right.  Why is it so swollen?  What should I do?  Why are my incisions tingling?  Why can't I get comfortable?"  It's just not like me.  I've felt out of my comfort zone several times before, but I find that my responses are changing, and I'm not sure what's going on.  My parents had to stay with me for, like, 10 minutes tonight before they went upstairs.  I needed a lot of reassurance, and it's just different.  I know it's a transition, it's just temporary, it's going to be okay.  But it's really scary.  I'm so thankful that, even though they are so tired, they've been driving me around for five hours (literally), and they woke up really early this morning, they still waited with me, prayed with me, and walked me through the fact that my legs have been in a cast for six weeks, and the stitches aren't going to rip open. 

I have only felt fear in transitions.  This is my life story.  It felt good just to sob tonight, not because it hurts, but because I found myself feeling afraid.  It's the same exact fear I felt throughout my student teaching experience, after my student teaching, when I couldn't figure out what I was going to do next, or where.  I couldn't get past my failure.  I'm afraid that I might be spoiled, or coddled in a situation so I try to tough it out.  But I also need help, and have to communicate effectively.  I just can't seem to find the balance.  It's just bringing back a lot of memories, stirring up a lot of baggage, and I'm finding it difficult to wade through.  I have failed at this over and over and over within the last several years; it's so fresh.  And frustrating.  A new kind of fear is starting to build up inside of me; the fear of the past & the future.  Paranoia.  Worry.  I have succumbed to this far more than I care to admit over the last year - it was an extremely rough year.  But I want to change how I respond.  I want to do things differently.  I just don't know how.  It hurts to admit that.

This is a journey.  I know that I'm pushing into a different chapter within this journey, and things like physical therapy, stretching out of my comfort level, and being out of a safe cast are going to bring new challenges.  But I am going to be praying about how to respond in a healthy way.  It sort of feels like an attack on all sides, and for some reason, I feel like the fear started to penetrate in tonight.  Baggage can do some pretty crazy things, can't it?

But Jesus is more powerful than that.  Surrender.  It happens every. single. day.  Every day has to be surrendered to Him.  Every piece of baggage that I own has to be handed over to him.

It was hard seeing my legs, but I still feel hope.  It was hard figuring out how to function with my legs so exposed, but life is not always about being comfortable.  It was hard to think clearly tonight amidst so many different emotions and feelings, but after praying with my parents (my community), I feel so much more peace.

My relationship with God is honestly what is getting me through this.  It is what has made this journey so far a deep, deep blessing in my life.  It is what has brought so many things to light for me, teaching experiences along the way, so many circles of learning.  It is where the peace and hope have come from so far; I just have to remember to rely on it at all times.  Trying times.  Scary times.  Exciting times.  Funny times.  Painful times.  Humiliating times.  Quiet times.  Emotional times.

The next chapter is going to be great, only because I serve a great God.  Despite my limitations, he can still do great things.  It may be painful, and it may stretch me, but he is the best TeacherCounselorFriendRedeemer
ListenerLoverFather I will ever have in my entire life.  All thanks go to him.

Salt.

I'm a hick at heart.  I've decided.  I say "hick" as a term of endearment and love, not in a derogatory way, but I have some tendencies that help me to get a feel my mother's Arkensaw roots.  The way I say thank you sometimes, for starters.  The memories of feeding baby goats & chickens on my MeeMaw's farm.  My love for country music.  My love for Sonic.  (It doesn't taste the same in Illinois, btw.)  My love for red dirt.  My love of the mountains.  My love of farms, and free-roaming livestock.  Tonight I felt like a hick because I was eatin' me some sunflower seeds, and spittin' the hulls out by the second.  Oh man, they are my new weakness.  Every night my parents and I eat them, and they are so good.  The salt that hits my taste buds is such an indulgence even though they always leave me thirsty.

I remember listening to a sermon a while back at a church I visited with my family when we were first moving into the area we were planting a church (Meadowland) in.  We hadn't started meeting as a body yet, we didn't even have a place to live, I don't think, but we were visiting local churches to get to know the people in our area.  The pastor spoke about the salt of the earth, and losing saltiness.  I'll never forget it.  I have never been more confused in my life.  He had a salt shaker, and he was talking to little kids about how salt loses it saltiness, and I was totally lost.  I was 15, and he was addressing 8 year olds.  Did they get it?  Was I the only one that didn't understand how salt lost its saltiness?"  I didn't want to lost my saltiness, man.  I was afraid of abandonment because I wasn't flavorful enough.

I have thought a lot about salt in the last few days.  I think it has something to do with the fact that I eat Barbeque flavored sunflower seeds with my parents every night before bed, and the fact that I just finished watching season two of Man vs. Wild where Bear Grylls walks through a salt flat.  (I love you Bear.)  It made me thirsty just watching him tread over foot after foot of salt. My skin is especially dry because it's been hiding away for a little while, and I think of those cracked salt flats he treks over.

It's kind of weird, huh.  I mean, salt is vital to our life.  Deer and other hooved animals need it to lick it in a funny fashion for entertainment purposes.  The sodium and chloride it contains keeps us alive.  It helps with digestion, enables our brains to send messages, it enables our hearts to contract.  It affects salinity in the oceans, which affects plant growth & microorganism survival.  It made for a not-so-great-looking movie with Angelina Jolie.

Jesus talked a lot about salt in the New Testament.  Jesus is called the salt and light of the world.  It has nothing to do with table salt on your table, in my opinion.  He's not just a seasoning to add a little spice to your life, something to mix things up a little.  He's not that convenient.  But he's also not an additive that makes you bloated; he doesn't make your life miserable.  Or look fat.  Or phat.

He simply makes people thirsty for more.

For something more.  You know?  Life is so much more than us - look at the stars, the galaxies, the universe.  Look at how our bodies function.  Look at a baby growing inside its mom's belly.  (Or uterus if you want to get technical with me.  That was an awkward classroom moment last year...)  Look at how I'm still breathing.

The something more that we are looking for is Jesus.  He is why we are thirsty.  The great paradox is that He alone satisfies our thirst because he is a living well of life.  He is water to our souls, and this water whets my dry lips, my dry mouth, my dry heart.  Always.  This water tastes sweet, and it is forever filling.

Today is the end of one leg of my journey; there's a part of the race that is coming to a close.  I find myself getting thirsty.  I'm pushing into, what I feel, is going to be the brunt of the journey so far.  Some might argue that the hardest part is over, but I just don't know.  I don't know how to feel or what to think.  Part of this confusion comes comes because I'm sleepy, but part of it is because I'm curious.  I'm entering the unknown.  Tomorrow I have an appointment with my amazing orthopedic surgeon, and I'll find out what to expect.  One of my casts will be removed, and another with be re-casted, but beyond that I don't have a clue.

As I'm talking with nurses and doctors tomorrow, and as I speak even tonight, I want to focus on this verse from Colossians 4:6:

"Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone."

When I'm talking with people in a hospital, when I'm talking with my friends on Facebook or g-chat, when I'm talking with my little sisters, when I'm talking with people who intimidate me, when I'm talking to people that frustrate me or humiliate me.  Full of grace, seasoned with salt.  Jesus modeled this well.  He is the same today as he was 2,000 years ago; he quenches our deep thirst.  He is as honest, but gentle with me as he was with the woman at the well.  He saw everyone as someone.  I want to be the same Catie to my sisters that I am to my doctors.  I want to be the same Catie to my enemies as I am to my friends.  I want to be growing and changing, yes, but I want my character & my integrity to stay consistent.  No performance, no faking it, no false images.

I want you to know that everything I say, you need to take with a grain of Jesus salt.  The Holy Spirit has been leading and guiding this blog so far - the Lord deserves all the credit.  Don't forget that I'm a human.  I keep saying this, but no one's taken me up on it yet: correct me.  Discuss with me.  Speak to me with salt so that I may still be thirsty for Jesus when I'm 92.  Tell me how I can pray for you.  Please keep praying for me.  I depend upon it. 

We need to strive to do this for one another, as a community & a body of people.  Thank you to the friends I spoke with today that helped me realize this.  Thank you to the friends that have encouraged me in so many ways throughout the last 48 days.  Thank you, Jesus, for the communities of people that you have moved me through and to.

I want to be the same person everywhere I go; full of grace.  With an answer.  Seasoned with salt.