The last 3 weeks have been hard for me. I’m not sure if many of you know, but I went snowboarding before Christmas, and it was awful. Why, you might ask? It was my very first time on a board and I honestly didn’t stay upright on my board long enough to know if it’s even fun. I fell so many times and I had NO idea that it would hurt as bad as it did to fall. I kept thinking, oh it’s just snow, how hard could it hurt to fall on my very padded butt? Ooooohhhh, was I wrong.
The first time I feel backwards on my butt it was like a rug was pulled right out from underneath me and I hit the snow so hard that it hurt from my bum all the way up to my skull, and I wasn’t even moving!! I fell so many times my first day on the slopes that my body hurt in places that I didn’t know it could hurt in. In fact, I only made it down the baby bunny hill two times the entire day I was up there. and after falling over and over and over again on the way down the hill I’d finally had enough. Snowboarding might be fun, but I’m not sure my body can take really finding out for sure if it is.
You see, after that horribly painful day, my body was feeling very sore, but still functionable. I continued with my regular running and exercise class schedule which has me working out 5-6 days a week for about an hour. Then, I decided I better give this snowboarding thing one more try, but on a much smaller scale – so I spent a morning boarding down a very small sledding hill in my neighborhood. Not nearlyl as scary and actually a little bit fun. :) I made it down the sledding hill about 25 times before I was just tuckered out, but I had 2 really good falls on my bum. My back hurt for the rest of the day and into the next. It was so sore, but it went away and I kept up with regular life again.
A few days later, I got a bur in my saddle to start tidying my whole house, which you can read all about here. I got so excited to tidy, that I roped my husband into tidying our storage room. We spent an entire weekend buried in the basement, sorting boxes and boxes of stuff. I went to pick up a box at one point and felt a pinch in my back that spasamed my whole back and it’s now 3 weeks later and I’m still dealing with it. 3 weeks!!! It feels like an eternity to me. I know how dumb that sounds because God bless all the people out there that deal with chronic pain and injuries – I don’t know how you do it. I’ve been to my amazing chiropractor quite a bit in the last 3 weeks and am eternally grateful to her and all that she does. She has explained to me that back pain is complicated and can be extremely frustrating to deal with. I’m not sure when my back with finally relax and calm down, but I spent the first 2 weeks babying my back and not lifting anything heavy. Of course that also meant no working out or running at all and for me, that’s really hard as I love doing both of those things.
My chiropractor also told me that she is pretty certain the spasam is from snowboarding. Did you all hear that?? Snowboarding. From the continual falling over and over and over, that I weakened my lower back muscles so badly and when I continued with my regular life and activity it finally gave up on me. You can’t fall that much and that hard without some serious damage being done to your body. Shoot! And to think I hurt my body this bad doing something that I didn’t want to do anyways. Double bummer. My attempt at trying to be brave for my kids worked, but I also injured myself and that is where God comes in with a life lesson.
So, Katrina, connect the dots. What do you mean the life lesson? Ok, I’m glad you asked…. I was at my Community Bible Study yesterday and was struck by a very deep answer to a question that I ponder all the time. I wonder all the time what is God’s purpose for my life, and if I’m actually doing what I should be doing?
Isaiah 43:7 says, “Everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” Did you catch that? It’s the whole created for my glory part. It’s not about if I’m doing the exact thing that God wants me to be doing and trying to figure that one thing out for the rest of my life, my life is not mine to begin with and what I want for my life is not the issue. My life is from God, created by God, given to me as a gift from God and the whole point of my life is to bring Glory to my Father – not glory to myself. Like a smack in the face huh? Yep, I know.
I know what you are thinking…you are losing me Katrina, what does that have to do with snowboarding and back pain? Snowboarding was born out of my husband’s desire for our family to all go skiing together. He loves to ski and he wants me and my kids to love it too. The only problem, I’ve never liked skiing, so I figured I would try snowboarding instead because the kids wanted to try to skiing so bad this year. It was doomed before we even went, but I put on my bravest face and tried. The kids loved it, the husband loved it, but mommy had an entirely different experience.
While I’m proud of myself for doing something that scared me out of my mind, I’m super annoyed that trying something I didn’t want to do to begin with is now keeping me from doing things I love to do. Me, I, me, me, me….that’s the problem. I keep thinking my life is all about me and what I want. I keep thinking that just because it’s my life that I have some right to how it goes. If I was able to do my regular working out I would be able to drop those additional 20lbs that I was so determined to lose early this year. Again, it’s all about me. As I was sitting at Community Bible Study this past week God whispered a truth to me – the fact that my life is not mine. My life is for God and to glorify Him with what He has given me. Whether that is 20lbs heavier than I want to be or not. It’s about my attitude and my gratefulness for what He gave me and how I use that for His glory.
Ouch. Such a good truth though.
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