Soul Surfing

Today completes my fifth week of being here in Denver. While I was meeting with Doctor King this morning I asked for a timeline, discharge date, number of weeks left or ANYTHING so I could just get an idea of how much longer I have here. His response, "Oh you'll be home before Christmas". Great, thanks Dr. King. He told me to just keep doing what I can, taking it a day at a time, practicing and paying attention. I need to continuously remind myself that "yes, I can do it" and instead of saying "I can't do it or I can't eat that meal" I should say, "I think that meal is scary/frightening/daunting but I CAN still do it".

I experienced an emotion explosion yesterday. My emotions actually didn't explode until I got back to my apartment but they were building up all day long. What triggered the emotion switch I find a little odd but after sleeping on it and thinking through things it isn't actually that strange. Red Box is my newest friend and yesterday we got to experience watching Soul Surfer together. I have been wanting to watch it for quite some time but just never got around to it. As the movie started I could feel my heart starting to beat faster, my hands starting to sweat and my my entire body getting tense. I kept asking other girls who had already seen it when she was going to get her arm bit off because I was literally so anxious for it to happen and to see the scene. Y'all it was the strangest thing I was dreading for the scene to happen because for some reason I thought if the scene never came than all of the shots and scenes at the beginning of the movie of her as a little girl and her surfing wouldn't be ruined and forever changed. I wanted "Bethany" to continue living her life of normalcy, joy and love. I felt so much for her that I could hardly sit through the first part of the movie because I knew her world was about to be forever rocked.

When I finally managed to make it to the scene of her accident I felt the tears welling up and my chest getting tight and was suddenly hit with the realization of why I was being so strangely impacted by this movie and this story. Soul Surfer is such a parallel to the life of my sweet cousin JD and his siblings and parents. The parallels start flashing through my head of before the accident, when the accident happened, getting the phone calls, rushing to the hospital and praying with all of our might that God would save this sweet boy from dying. Bethany's parents in the movie reminded me so much of my aunt and uncle; their trust in the Lord and their willingness to do whatever it took to get their child healthy. Yes, things were no longer 'normal' for Bethany after she lost her arm but then again what is normal? Who defines what normal looks like and sounds like? Who has the right to say a person with two arms is normal verses a girl with one arm? Mrs. Hamilton stated in response to normalcy was that it is overrated. It is overrated. I don't believe in normal so much anymore because when we think our lives are normal than I believe we are comfortable and we weren't placed in this world to be comfortable. Dr. King tells me all the time that if I feel comfortable while I'm, here than I wouldn't be making progress. I didn't choose to come to treatment to be comfortable for two months but rather to sit through discomfort and experience how ugly recovery is. Will recovery and treatment get me back to a 'normal' life? I hope not. What I do hope is that I will discover a normal relationship with food and eating and I hope that recovery will lead me to a life of adventures, fun and true living. JD and his family's life looks different now than it did three years ago but does that make it abnormal? No. It makes it exciting and different. It helps them learn to live a day at a time, to get on their knees and cry out to God and to use what is an uncomfortable situation to bring glory to God's name.

My prayer for you as well as myself today is that you allow yourself to accept abnormal. Stop striving for a normal life, normal clothes, normal job or a normal family because in the end you will only be disappointed. Handle situations as they come and go with the flow of things. Be flexible. Don't judge your life to the "definition" of normal. Trust that God is doing what He wills for you and be gracious that there is a King who has your back day and night. We don't have to worry about normalcy when we have faith and a promise of eternal life in a perfect place with the Creator of all things. We are made perfect in HIS image and to me that sounds a whole heck of a lot better than just being normal.