Do you find yourself thinking about errors in judgment that resulted in less than stellar results? Agonizing over a task left undone or emails you wish were unsent? I do. I would go so far as to say that almost everything bad that’s happened to me has been rooted in my own decisions. However, my life is darned near perfect in spite of those flawed choices. Allow me to illustrate. (Note that any medical references are in basic terms since I am not a medical professional. I haven’t even slept at a Holiday Inn Express lately. I am, however, wide open to corrections by those who know better.)
I love doing laundry, but most other activities I enjoy are done sitting down – crocheting, reading, writing, watching TV/movies. That, and most of my career was spent at a desk. Turns out that humans are not built for sedentary lifestyles, a fact that you probably already knew. Lack of movement isn’t good for your body. Actually, lack of movement is actively bad for your bones and muscles. I learned this the hard way by forgetting that the hip bone is connected to the thigh bone, and so on. Mobility issues are fairly easy to develop, it turns out.
When you don’t keep the gluteals (glutes) strong and the iliotibial band flexible, other muscles/tendons/whatevers are impacted and not in a good way. In my case, the result was bursitis severe enough to disrupt normal activities, including a good night’s rest. When you aren’t sleeping well, a whole multitude of other problems can develop. According to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, you could be going down a path to heart disease, diabetes or depression, among other possibilities.
Some of this I learned by googling, but much of my education in this area is due to dedicated physical therapists. They understand that hard-headed people like me, who prefer to remain motionless forever, need to grasp the ‘why’ of the therapy before they are willing to commit to the prescribed effort. I am in the shape I am in because of decisions I have made. That is, I have indulged in pastimes that don’t “do a body good,” to steal a phrase from a milk commercial.
By now you are wondering where the heck this is going. Here it is. If the pain hadn’t been great enough, I never would have made my way through the gauntlet of GP, then Ortho, then the Physical Therapist to work on a long-term solution. And if I hadn’t, I might have ended up completely immobile some years before my final audit with my Maker. That isn’t the way I want to spend the last quarter (or so) of my life.
This particular error of my ways is, of course, fairly tame compared to other, vastly more embarrassing mistakes I’ve made. I won’t be sharing those here, but I will tell you that almost everything I thought I fouled up taught me invaluable lessons. About relationships or parenting or even about myself. Sometimes you need to trust God’s process to see where it’s going before you succumb to despair.
Put another way by Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. My example doesn’t seem to have a faith-based context, but it is one of life’s circumstances. And in its way, it has been a blessing. Is my take on these verses over-simplified? Probably. I’m not a theologian. But I can read and think and feel.
I am not saying God plans my mistakes for me. I am saying that I believe He is able to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. My mess: His ability to make it work for me. Perhaps in doing so it helps others, too.
When I look toward the end of a tunnel, I don’t really have any way of knowing whether the light I see is a challenge or a solution. I think maybe it can be both.
You?
