So, a HUGE rule for the patients at this Clinic is this: NO EXERCISE!!!
Especially enforced against us "over-exercisers". Which apparently running multiple times a day with the intention of burning off food and feeling guilty for not exceeding five miles would qualify me as? Or that's what they say... Reluctantly, I've had to agree with them.
This has been one of the HARDEST things for me to comply with. It's a huge way I cope and find peace.
It was my second week at the clinic and I couldn't handle it anymore. I had to run. So much stress and pain and not-moving. I was gonna do it. I didn't care. So I left with flip flops on my feet. When they asked where I was going, I was able to say: Just for a walk! See I have flip flops on :)
Oh, what a fool I was as I look back on this story; I can't help but laugh. I didn't run too far, but regardless I ran.... in flip flops. It started to hurt my foot pretty bad after awhile but I kept going until finally I had to resort to speed walking from the pain.
I got back to the clinic and went to sleep with that throbbing pain in my foot.... And it didn't go away... for the whole week. I began to worry slightly so I asked some medically inclined friends and my nurse what they thought after admitting that I had ran against medical permission.
"Hannah, you have a stress fracture."
We did some research and sure enough, that is definitely what had happened in those specific metatarsels of my foot. The only way to heal a stress fracture? REST! NO EXERCISE OR STRENUOUS ACTIVITY. Hm. What could happen if you decide to do so anyway? You will break your foot and potentially need surgery. Hm.
Real funny, God. I get it.
Am I still tempted to run every day? Absolutely. But then I remember what could be worse... a few weeks of not running or a few months of a cast?
As frustrating as this injury has been, I have never felt so LOVED by God. He will do whatever He has to in order to heal me... to rescue me.... to ensure I am following the steps I need to in order to recover.
He loves me THAT MUCH to discipline me. What a good Daddy He is. So be careful the next time you decide to run from His path... sometimes quite literally.... you never know what He will do to keep you in the right direction.
Monday, September 23, 2013
Sunday, September 15, 2013
A Dream Come True
I saw her.
She was an adorable little black girl with a sparkly bow in her hair. She was running in chaotic circles around her house on a huge property. She looked afraid. Sometimes she laughed, but there was something behind her smile that seemed confused... it seemed painful.
Her mom was at the front door begging her to come home. She tried everything. She even chased her a few times, but still couldn't get her to return. As I walked past, something stirred in my heart to go help.
I walked right up to her little, lost face; I scooped her tired body up into my arms without a fight, and together, we began to walk back towards the house.
She clung tightly to my chest. I kept assuring her that I loved her, and it was going to be alright. She looked up at me with watery eyes and said she prayed and asked God to send her someone to take her home... someone to rescue her. A smile spread across my lips and I said: "He sent me for you. I'm here to rescue you and take you home."
The rest of our walk to the house consisted of laughter and "i love you" 's. When we finally arrived, her mother couldn't stop crying and thanking me for returning her beloved daughter.
And then I woke up.
Tears filled my sleepy eyes. I immediately paralleled the dream to a confirmation from God that I would one day BE that rescuer my heart so desires to be for lost children across the world. I knew He used it to remind me that He hadn't forgotten-- that one day soon I will be able to rescue the oppressed and help return the lost to their homes.
I rushed to tell my own mother how vividly God had spoken to me through my dream. She stopped and said:
"Hannah, I think God wants to rescue you."
Could that be why He has postponed my dream/vision/trip to Africa for now?
Through these last few weeks, He has given me a loud, resounding, and constant "YES!!!!"
That same day as I was reading in Isaiah, I came across this verse word for word in Isaiah 60:4: "...your little daughters will be carried home." ...... Laughing out loud I thought, okay Jesus. I believe you. I get it.
I've lived in denial, honest ignorance, and justification of a problem I've had for almost ten years...
Call it what you will, but the effects of it go so much deeper than the medical terminology for it.
The doctor will call it an eating disorder. But I would call it my prison cell.
I didn't think it was even an issue anymore, honestly. I was "over and past that" years ago. Who cares if I skip meals here and there and run until I throw up? I deserve it right? No big deal. It's not as bad as it used to be. I'm fine.
And I lived with that "fine" and happily carried on with my life. Sure it came and went. Sometimes worse than others depending on where I was at in life. Until one day...
When it became a deeper issue than "not liking my body". I hated myself. I hated myself so badly that I thought I deserved to hurt myself. I was convinced my worth, my beauty, my identity my feelings... none of it mattered if I was "fat". Depression like I've never known it before hit me so hard in the face every day that I couldn't even get out of bed. My emotions started to numb and all I felt was pain, anger, and hatred for myself.
In a very short time, this disorder began to completely steal my joy, take away who I was, crush my dreams, and make me miserable.
Consumed, broken, hurting, confused and SO very lost.
Thank God for friends who love me enough to force me to get help. So that's where I've been... spending everyday in a hospitalized clinic for recovery. Admitting this in general is extremely hard for me. But going through the process of recovery, tears, anger, and reliving things from my past I want to forget more than anything has been the hardest.
But God is healing me, friends. He is cleaning out the clutter of my past. He is speaking the truth over my heart and my life. He is walking with me through every tear filled day. He is showing me exactly how HE feels about me. He is showing me He loves me every moment of the day. More than anything, He is teaching me that He delights in rescuing me and taking me back home. Now when I re-read my dream, I place myself as the little daughter in the story... and I see Jesus play the part that I've been trying to for so many years.
He loves me NOW. He wants me even in this place. In the most broken, weak, shameful, and helpless place. He still loves me. Every day He tells me again in a new and special way: "I am here for you. I am here to rescue you and take you home."
She was an adorable little black girl with a sparkly bow in her hair. She was running in chaotic circles around her house on a huge property. She looked afraid. Sometimes she laughed, but there was something behind her smile that seemed confused... it seemed painful.
Her mom was at the front door begging her to come home. She tried everything. She even chased her a few times, but still couldn't get her to return. As I walked past, something stirred in my heart to go help.
I walked right up to her little, lost face; I scooped her tired body up into my arms without a fight, and together, we began to walk back towards the house.
She clung tightly to my chest. I kept assuring her that I loved her, and it was going to be alright. She looked up at me with watery eyes and said she prayed and asked God to send her someone to take her home... someone to rescue her. A smile spread across my lips and I said: "He sent me for you. I'm here to rescue you and take you home."
The rest of our walk to the house consisted of laughter and "i love you" 's. When we finally arrived, her mother couldn't stop crying and thanking me for returning her beloved daughter.
And then I woke up.
Tears filled my sleepy eyes. I immediately paralleled the dream to a confirmation from God that I would one day BE that rescuer my heart so desires to be for lost children across the world. I knew He used it to remind me that He hadn't forgotten-- that one day soon I will be able to rescue the oppressed and help return the lost to their homes.
I rushed to tell my own mother how vividly God had spoken to me through my dream. She stopped and said:
"Hannah, I think God wants to rescue you."
Could that be why He has postponed my dream/vision/trip to Africa for now?
Through these last few weeks, He has given me a loud, resounding, and constant "YES!!!!"
That same day as I was reading in Isaiah, I came across this verse word for word in Isaiah 60:4: "...your little daughters will be carried home." ...... Laughing out loud I thought, okay Jesus. I believe you. I get it.
I've lived in denial, honest ignorance, and justification of a problem I've had for almost ten years...
Call it what you will, but the effects of it go so much deeper than the medical terminology for it.
The doctor will call it an eating disorder. But I would call it my prison cell.
I didn't think it was even an issue anymore, honestly. I was "over and past that" years ago. Who cares if I skip meals here and there and run until I throw up? I deserve it right? No big deal. It's not as bad as it used to be. I'm fine.
And I lived with that "fine" and happily carried on with my life. Sure it came and went. Sometimes worse than others depending on where I was at in life. Until one day...
When it became a deeper issue than "not liking my body". I hated myself. I hated myself so badly that I thought I deserved to hurt myself. I was convinced my worth, my beauty, my identity my feelings... none of it mattered if I was "fat". Depression like I've never known it before hit me so hard in the face every day that I couldn't even get out of bed. My emotions started to numb and all I felt was pain, anger, and hatred for myself.
In a very short time, this disorder began to completely steal my joy, take away who I was, crush my dreams, and make me miserable.
Consumed, broken, hurting, confused and SO very lost.
Thank God for friends who love me enough to force me to get help. So that's where I've been... spending everyday in a hospitalized clinic for recovery. Admitting this in general is extremely hard for me. But going through the process of recovery, tears, anger, and reliving things from my past I want to forget more than anything has been the hardest.
But God is healing me, friends. He is cleaning out the clutter of my past. He is speaking the truth over my heart and my life. He is walking with me through every tear filled day. He is showing me exactly how HE feels about me. He is showing me He loves me every moment of the day. More than anything, He is teaching me that He delights in rescuing me and taking me back home. Now when I re-read my dream, I place myself as the little daughter in the story... and I see Jesus play the part that I've been trying to for so many years.
He loves me NOW. He wants me even in this place. In the most broken, weak, shameful, and helpless place. He still loves me. Every day He tells me again in a new and special way: "I am here for you. I am here to rescue you and take you home."
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Starting to Stop
If you continue to go, go go... someday God will eventually force you to S T O P.
We're only human. We can't run forever.
Many times, we don't even realize that we're running away. Until one day when you've been forced to slow down, you're face to face with this destruction in your life... It's around you, it's inside you, and it's behind you.
Things you were sure you conquered years ago, memories you wanted so badly to push away because you were "over them", shame from actions against you that you didn't have control over, pain in the deep places of your heart you thought was healed because you no longer felt it, addictions you thought were long gone because you hadn't struggled in so long....
But the TRUTH,
The REALITY,
when life gets paused and you're no longer able to fill up every minute with work, school, laughter, media, and people. Or for me, when the plan you had been banking your entire life on gets interrupted....
you see that the pain is still there. Those memories are still haunting. The bitterness has been chewing away your heart. Like a desolate wilderness, a forest fire had been devouring all these parts of me I was running from.
How did I get here?
Because I r a n.
For ten years I've run from house to house, person to person, hobby to hobby. I thought when pain was absent, that meant I was healed. But that's like trying to say that when oxygen is present, your breathing is 100% fine.... but what if your lungs are collapsing? The presence of oxygen has no reason to indicate your breathing will be ensured if something is wrong with you and your lungs.
Would you spend all your time trying to adjust the oxygen levels around you?
Or would you go straight to your lungs, where the problem truly lies?
Instead, we go from breathing machine to breathing machine. It sustains us for a bit, then we need another.
So many of us do this with our lives.
We do everything we can to change our circumstance, tweak our environments, and even fix the people around us. And it works for awhile. We stop feeling pain, we feel happiness and peace... But it never lasts. And eventually we're left searching for the next outward variable that needs changed.
All the while, we're completely ignoring the destruction of our life source: our breathing.... our hearts.
How silly it sounds. But how often I do this.
Jesus makes it abundantly clear that HE is the only source of living water... Water that has the ability to satisfy us forever, not just for a season. But we must be willing to stop running, to let ourselves get a drink from the proper source.
But that means we have to stop distracting ourselves from our pain. We have to come face to face with our pasts. We must feel the hurt we've suppressed for years. We have to let HIM fill us up.
It's the scariest, hardest, most painful thing I have ever had to do. But I trust God that freedom is worth every tear. And if I get more of Him and His presence close to my heart, I'll do whatever it takes...
Even if that means to stop running.
As I just finished reading Isaiah, God has spoken this truth over and over and over again: He DELIGHTS in rescuing you... In rescuing me. He will do whatever it takes. He wants you home. He cares about YOU, not what you're caught up in, trapped inside, or addicted to.
I'll save my next post for that topic :)
God is faithful, and He has beautiful things for you. Stop running and perfecting your oxygen, face the wound inside.
We're only human. We can't run forever.
Many times, we don't even realize that we're running away. Until one day when you've been forced to slow down, you're face to face with this destruction in your life... It's around you, it's inside you, and it's behind you.
Things you were sure you conquered years ago, memories you wanted so badly to push away because you were "over them", shame from actions against you that you didn't have control over, pain in the deep places of your heart you thought was healed because you no longer felt it, addictions you thought were long gone because you hadn't struggled in so long....
But the TRUTH,
The REALITY,
when life gets paused and you're no longer able to fill up every minute with work, school, laughter, media, and people. Or for me, when the plan you had been banking your entire life on gets interrupted....
you see that the pain is still there. Those memories are still haunting. The bitterness has been chewing away your heart. Like a desolate wilderness, a forest fire had been devouring all these parts of me I was running from.
How did I get here?
Because I r a n.
For ten years I've run from house to house, person to person, hobby to hobby. I thought when pain was absent, that meant I was healed. But that's like trying to say that when oxygen is present, your breathing is 100% fine.... but what if your lungs are collapsing? The presence of oxygen has no reason to indicate your breathing will be ensured if something is wrong with you and your lungs.
Would you spend all your time trying to adjust the oxygen levels around you?
Or would you go straight to your lungs, where the problem truly lies?
Instead, we go from breathing machine to breathing machine. It sustains us for a bit, then we need another.
So many of us do this with our lives.
We do everything we can to change our circumstance, tweak our environments, and even fix the people around us. And it works for awhile. We stop feeling pain, we feel happiness and peace... But it never lasts. And eventually we're left searching for the next outward variable that needs changed.
All the while, we're completely ignoring the destruction of our life source: our breathing.... our hearts.
How silly it sounds. But how often I do this.
Jesus makes it abundantly clear that HE is the only source of living water... Water that has the ability to satisfy us forever, not just for a season. But we must be willing to stop running, to let ourselves get a drink from the proper source.
But that means we have to stop distracting ourselves from our pain. We have to come face to face with our pasts. We must feel the hurt we've suppressed for years. We have to let HIM fill us up.
It's the scariest, hardest, most painful thing I have ever had to do. But I trust God that freedom is worth every tear. And if I get more of Him and His presence close to my heart, I'll do whatever it takes...
Even if that means to stop running.
As I just finished reading Isaiah, God has spoken this truth over and over and over again: He DELIGHTS in rescuing you... In rescuing me. He will do whatever it takes. He wants you home. He cares about YOU, not what you're caught up in, trapped inside, or addicted to.
I'll save my next post for that topic :)
God is faithful, and He has beautiful things for you. Stop running and perfecting your oxygen, face the wound inside.
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