Falling, it’s Trust

“You’re not going to let me fall?” “I’m not going to fall, am I?” Each question, each answer the same: “”No, I will not let you fall.” Not fully reassuring my fears, I had but no choice to place full trust in those helping me. Because I fell and it left me, in a moment, in full dependence on others. I fear falling.

I have a history in falling. By the time I was baby walking, I never seemed to grow out of it. My parents tell the stories of our family walks when I was around maybe five years old or so. I would trip on the sidewalk resulting in meeting new people around the block, as we would have to get to the nearest house for paper towels and a possible bandage. My bathroom drawer is stocked with Band Aides; I carry different sizes too in my wallet. Best to be prepared.

I was not, however, at all prepared for what happened last week. After getting home Tuesday evening, I went to bed. I did nothing Wednesday, except struggle to write a quick Facebook post that I was home and talk for a few minutes to a lady friend from town who brought pretty Get-Well flowers. I slept at all other times, even just going to bed by 9PM. I was told rest was good.

Around 5AM or so, I got up to use the restroom. As my right foot reached the line where the carpet meets tile, my natural curve hit the tile and my foot dug in the carpet, stubbing my baby toes and sending me off balance…plus my eye is completely swollen shut, so I am blind on that side. My bathroom has two sets of lights and Mom, in genius thinking, had left the light on that is above the toilet which just so happens to be the first tthing on the right when you walk in the door.

I am a known sleep-walker, but in this case, I know I was awake. Yet even the light didn’t help me see much as I started downwards–first ramming my right ribs on the door frame and then aimed for the toilet bowl. I am glad God created us with elbows and armpits, because those are what saved me from landing face first in the toilet bowl. My armpit caught the side of the seat and the elbow came withing inches of the water.

By this time, I am crying and breathing hard due to my ribs; as I pull my face up, I sit up and see a pool of blood. My left leg had been gashed right above the knee by the metal part of the brake on my walker wheel. I started hyperventilating. Mom was in the bathroom in less than a minute and wasted no time getting an ambulance. In the ER, I get a few CAT scans and x-rays to be certain of no inner damage. After 8 stitches in the wound, I get discharged with my leg in a brace to keep my knee from bending. We got home around 10:30AM. I just went back to bed.

There were some good things the rest of Friday, but by that night I was feeling sick; Saturday, the headaches increased with loss of appetite and I felt sick, Plain sick. As Mom helped me get myself ready to go back to the ER, I just said that too: “I feel sick. Everything is so wrong!” And it is. My body is wrong, because I live in a fallen world.

But the story doesn’t end there. My story doesn’t end there. Because I have been saved and even when I fall, He is right beside me. My friend was over today nd we were discussing things. I told her how it takes looking back in times like this to see the Goodness. My eye was never touched even though my face flew a mere inch from the toilet handle bar. My Lifeline was not connected properly that evening, because the phone line was down and my phone had been pushed away when my walker skidded across the bathroom floor. My own calls for help would have been useless. Yet God had awoken Mom at the timing of it all.

Losing my independence, though temporary, has been humbling. It has given me a chance to sit and rest. Sit and think. Sit and read. Sit and talk to God. I can’t say I will miss being dependent when this stage passes, but I might miss these moments (minus the painstiffy!) But in this experience, I have seen my life–my full need of dependence on God. Without Him, I am nothing.

Take my body and build it up
May it be broken as an offering of love
For I have nothing, I have nothing without You

All my soul needs
Is all Your love to cover me
So all the world will see
That I have nothing
But I love You

*Bebbo Norman. “Nothing Without You.”