The Black Boot Analogy

I can’t drive.  I have to rest after being on my foot for a short period of time.  I can barely take care of my kids.   Showering is surprisingly difficult, requiring an absurd amount of planning and preparation.  I had no idea how many every day tasks would become a chore when I broke my right foot.  It feels like an eternity ago, and yet seems like it happened yesterday.  In reality, I’ve been wearing this clunky big black boot (the dreaded triple B) for over a month now.  It’s awkward and inconvenient.  I hate it.  And yet I love it.  I need it.  It protects me from further injury.  And over the past several weeks, it’s become a part of me. 

Unfortunately, the clunky black boot was a minor part of the trials that piled up one after another last month.  A nasty virus took out the whole family one by one, cellulitis in Dylan’s eye and high fevers that wouldn’t break threatened to send us to the emergency room three nights in a row, cellulitis in Caleb’s fingers broke out a day later, our “good” car broke down and needs a new transmission in the midst of financial trials, my grandpa got hit by a car riding his bike home from the coffee shop and spent the night in the hospital…  Every day was something new.  I was living my nightmare.  And in the midst of so many mortal trials, the foundation of my universe collapsed.  
As difficult as everything on the surface has been, it amounts for a tiny fraction of the internal torment I am experiencing. 

My optimistic, “I can do this” attitude was shattered in an instant.  My prayers of gratitude and thanksgiving became desperate pleas for deliverance.  My prayers of help me do thy will became “please help me get through this day…or even just the next hour.”  I took each new trial in stride.  I smiled and knew I would get through it.  And then one day I collapsed under the weight of so many trials compounded.  It was simply too much to bear.

MY EMOTIONS CANNOT BE TRUSTED!  I go from feeling numb to despair, from anger to fear.  In moments when I manage to surpass the intense depression I am experiencing, I attempt to reflect.  I have faith.  I trust God.  I know good can come from extreme sorrow and trials.  But it is difficult.  A depression that comes on with such intensity creates a thick fog that clouds reality.  It’s difficult to see the light, to see anything but  darkness.  But I have moments – brief moments – of clarity.  Moments where I am still Maria and feel a divine purpose and connection with a loving Heavenly Father.  I cling to those moments like a starving POW in a concentration camp clings to the last grain of rice in the tiny bit of sustenance he is fed once a day.  Those moments of hope are everything, the only relief I get from hours and hours of torture, torment and despair.  It was during a moment of clarity and reflection that the broken foot analogy came to light.  My initial plan was to write my thoughts in my personal journal.  I am hesitant to publicly share my thoughts, and yet a part of me feels like I need to.  Perhaps it will be therapeutic.  Perhaps someone needs to hear the words I write.  I’m not sure why, but I’ve decided to share my personal thoughts here today. 

The pain I experienced when I broke my foot was intense.  I knew I had likely broken my big toe.  Others who saw pictures thought the same.  But I didn’t realize my foot was broken in 5 places, including two joints.  I had no idea that a similar break can cause long-term problems if not handled correctly.  I couldn’t foresee the panic that would appear in the eyes of the Instacare doctor when she realized that what she thought was merely a sprain was actually a complicated break.  I was shocked at the urgency I sensed when doctors and nurses immediately placed my foot in a big black boot to protect it from further damage.  It happened so fast.  It was like a dream, like watching a movie stuck in fast forward mode.  I couldn’t stop it.  I couldn’t slow it down.  Every moment felt like something new unraveled, but I didn’t have time to ponder or process.  I had to experience it all as it happened and sort it out later. 

I had no idea that after hearing about my break, the orthopedic surgeon had scheduled the Operating Room at the hospital before I even arrived for my appointment the next morning.  It was all so sudden. I knew surgery was likely that morning, but the reality of needing surgery hadn’t fully hit me until I was given the possibility of healing without surgery.  For the first time in twelve hours, I exhaled.  I breathed a sigh of relief.  And then I sobbed.  As bad as the break was, the bones were somehow not displaced.  My foot could potentially heal without invasive surgery, pins, screws and the potential of arthritis and other complications later in life.  None of that was apparent by simply looking at my swollen, bruised foot the day it broke.  It took x-rays – a detailed look on the inside – to make sense of it.  And even with x-rays, I needed an expert to point out the tender mercy that occurred in the midst of such chaos and ruin. 

My heart and soul suffered fractures and breaks that seem to mirror my foot.  Some things you can’t share.  Some things you don’t want to.  Friends and family know we are struggling.  We have had meals and rides and help with kids.  But the extent of this set of trials compiled cannot be seen with human eyes.  It is clear there is damage, but only a look on the inside would reveal the true extent of the hurt and pain and daily struggle that is my current reality.  It is much more severe than the battered exterior may indicate.  And because the breaks are complicated, I have the equivalent of a big black boot protecting my heart from further damage.  One more bump or bruise could be catastrophic.

People ask me how I’m doing.  What can they do to help?  Sigh.  I wish I knew.  I don’t have an answer.  That shadow of a woman you glance from a distance wearing the same pair of old pajama pants for the third day in a row chasing half-dressed kids down the cul-de-sac like a pirate on a peg leg isn’t simply swollen and bruised.  She has complicated breaks that require expert eyes to assess and repair.  Injuries that only the Master Physician can heal.  Like my foot, there is no quick fix.  My current set of trials requires patience, humility and an enormous amount of faith.  In the meantime, I’m doing the best I can to take one awkward clunky big black boot step forward at a time.