Paralyzed

Have you ever experienced paralysis?  Complete or Partial?

The closest I have ever come to paralysis is surgical anesthesia and post-op medications.  But, I guess that really doesn't count because my mind wasn't fully functioning either.

Only once do I remember being awake and hearing all that was going on around me and not being able to move my arms or legs or communicate and I thought, "I'm dying."   Obviously, I didn't die but I still remember lying on the table and not able to control my own body.

My daughter has talked about being trapped in her own body - her mind wanting to go and do and be places but her body just not cooperating.

Paralysis is defined as the loss of ability to move, and sometimes feel anything.  The cause?  The result of illness, poison or injury.

I've felt paralyzed lately.

The past 12 months have been one of constant motion and change and challenge.  Beginning with a call from our daughter's doctor that they could no longer help her and she needed to seek care for her complicated cerebral palsy in either Los Angeles or Chicago;  my husband having to travel for his job, leaving me to manage 17 acres alone;  then door after door that God opened and led to us moving - 25 hours away from our Mountain Family of Choice - people we had done life with for 11 years; 34 hours from my dad, my greatest cheerleader.  And here I am in Northern Illinois - minutes from Wisconsin and Lake Michigan.

But relocating my family wasn't all i did - we moved and 6 weeks later, I followed Ashley on a missions trip to London and Greece which left my wrecked.  Home and 2 weeks later a family reunion.  Then, we returned to continue to unpack a house, organize Ashley's senior year, began the onslaught of new doctor's visits and tests.

And I crashed.

I reached the point my body was exhausted, my mind was drained and the past 4 weeks, I have merely gone through the motions.

The enormity of everything that has transpired in 12 months left me injured.  There's a grief - I miss my friends and family of choice and I miss the tall mountains and the elk in my yard.

And now healing starts.

The celebration of the new - I can drive into downtown Chicago and back out without a map!  I have new friends - Joyce cracks me up!   Things I enjoy - so much soccer!  

There's new purpose too.

Time to write - which actually left me paralyzed again.  I have been so bogged won in the format, in the look, in the platform and the content that I could not type - I just walked away from the computer.

My paralysis wasn't all bad.  It made me be still and and feel and face the change.

And now, the cloak of immobility is falling away and I'm stretching my limbs and exercising my mind and writing again.

My mountains may not be here to remind me of God's strength, but the wide-open skies of the plains remind me - my God's grace is wide and knowns no end.