Feeling awkward but willing, I continue to ask for help since I can only use one arm. Rico helps me dress, Sonya helped me prepare my nephew’s room, my doctor has squeezed me into her overscheduled day and my thoughtful parents offer to pick up anything we need when they go to Costco. I request 2 bags of broccoli and green bananas. I struggle with the notion that I should be doing this for them, not them doing this for me. I go to put a few nuts in my yogurt and notice they are almost gone. I buy them at Costco. It seems obvious…call my folks and add to the list. Simple and yet suddenly a battle ensues in my mind. I don’t want to add to what I have already placed on them. I don’t want to overburden them. I don’t want them to have to carry too much. These are my first thoughts. Finally, I think to ask You what is really going on. “You have set yourself up to be rescuer, helper, savior and you are not familiar with allowing others into the vulnerable parts of you that need help”. OMW!!! I have unknowingly moved into a lethal place of setting myself up to be god in people’s lives. You have given me gifts of genuine compassion and help, but I have allowed the enemy to use these good things against me. Just like in the desert when he intensified the attacks against You, he used good things; the Word!! But You knew how to defeat him. I can only experience victory over his tactics behind You! Never, never on my own! I have insidiously slipped into a very dangerous place. I only desire to offer You to others and I became very misguided in how to do this. I neglected to wait to discover the good works You prepared in advance for me to do; instead rushing in with MY good works which are as useful as rags! I repent! Change me, Kind Savior! Please reestablish correct order in my life, heart and spirit.

When this injury first occurred, I desperately cried out thinking I must have really angered You for You to allow this to happen.  In what seemed like crushing hopelessness, erupts new, beautiful, meaningful transformation. I am truly grateful that You love me so much, You will bring to me that which looks like doom but in fact, is a conduit to new and richer life in You.

I am going to go call my parents and ask for nuts 😉

Unknowingly, I had jumped on to the merry-go-round of helping and doing and before I knew it, the ride was spinning so fast, I was holding on for dear life; take my in laws to appointments, lift the wheelchair, arrange assisted living, check on my folks, help our precious niece, walk the dogs, clean the house, declutter the house, connect with Rico, maintain exercise program to boost health, work, yard work, do mud run…. Until I went to move my arm and heard myself cry out in pain. WHAT?! How can this be? What did I do? Well, according to the ER doctor, I have a severe shoulder sprain and tendonitis, most likely due to ignoring all warning soreness in the previous several weeks. So the ride came to a screeching halt. Literally panicked, I cry out to You, “How will we get all this done if I can’t help?!” Sobering news flash. “Daughter, you have desperately run around offering your help. You have not had time to remain tightly connected to Me so while you are frantic to provide  assistance, you have not been quiet to hear what they really need and what I will equip you to give  them.” Ouch. Guilty as charged. But as always, I hear NO condemnation in Your correction; only deep love and an intent desire to give abundant life and freedom to me and those You bring to my days. As I sit quietly now, arm and shoulder immobilized, I am reoriented and the frenzied pace is suddenly so clear. The brokenness of my reasons surface and You are granting kind transformation. Humbled and vulnerable, I call my dear friend for help. It is embarrassing for me to be helpless and I find myself rejoicing as You reveal this pride in me. Not quite the way I prefer my lessons to come…ok, not at all!! But You are so worth whatever is necessary to bring me back to my first Love.