Another Step

Imagine you decided to take a trip southward and eventually ended up in Antarctica. This would take some serious maneuvering of travel modes, but it is distinctly possible that the frozen tundra of the South Pole would be your stopping place if you kept going south.

Once you arrived, you might complain about the cold temperatures and how it wasn't what you expected, but this is still the journey you chose to undertake. With a desire for warmer temperatures and a lack of enthusiasm for your surroundings, you can begin a northward trek. The truth, however, is that you won't be on a sunny beach in a short period of time. Your journey to the South Pole took a while and the warm beaches of Miami, Florida aren't quite within reach yet. You've got to keep traveling in the right direction to get where you want to be.

I see this being similar to the picture of recovery. We usually end up in predicaments (relationship, financial, mental health, habits, addictions) because of a series of choices. While we can see positive gains from a change of direction, there are still steps of healing that will take time. Committing to the process of growth and healing is a lifelong journey.

You can't change in a day what took a lifetime to create, but you can take another step in the right direction. Where do you need to take a step today?

Recovery Shot

A good friend of mine who was a high school golf coach once told me that if I wanted to be more successful in the game I needed to learn to hit a decent recovery shot. He said the best golfers realize they won't hit every shot perfectly and have developed the ability to recover from that mistake. Sometimes it's learning to sacrifice to get back on a level playing surface and out of uneven territory. Other times it's about navigating through hazards and tough terrain while moving toward the goal. This shot is something every golfer will need at some point.

I shared this idea with a friend over coffee this morning as I realized how we need the ability to hit a recovery shot whether we play golf or not. We are imperfect people and won't always say the right words, react in the healthiest way, choose the right path, or treat people like they should be treated. When that happens we can either keep plugging along in the wrong direction and cause greater damage or we can recover from our mistakes and poor choices. It isn't realistic to expect people to always make the right decisions, but we can work together to recover and get back on the right path.

Admitting we make mistakes is an important step. It's incomplete, however, if we don't do what's necessary to make things better.

The Hard Question

One of the hardest questions we can ask ourselves is, "Why?" It's easier to ask the question of "What?" because we can list the symptoms of a problem without having to address the cause. We can ask the question of "Who?" because we need someone to blame. We ask the question of "When?" as we figure out the time frame of the problem. There is even the question of "How?" to lay out the actions leading to our predicament. None of these questions, however, will help us discover the reasons we end up where we are.

When we shift our focus to wanting to know the rationale behind our circumstances, we can start to solve the problem. An internal audit brings us face to face with our own motivation and moves us beyond complaining about our current circumstances to actually doing something about them. Without knowing "why" something has happened we only address things superficially. Getting to the heart of the matter means peeling back uncomfortable layers and looking deeply at the root cause so healing can begin.

Falling Down

The game of dominoes is not one I've ever played, but I do remember setting them up in a row to be knocked over. There are even online videos of intricate, lengthy circles and rows ready to be pushed down. It's a fascinating thing to watch, but is less enthralling when it feels like your personal life is being treated like a row of dominoes.

There are times when it seems as if one circumstance after another piles up and knocks down our resistance, endurance, courage, and health. It feels like this falling motion is completely out of control and we have to wait for everything to hit the floor before we can recover. How can we stop this from happening? How do we regain some of our lost courage and find a way to stop the cycle of disappointment and pain? Is there a way out or are we doomed to waiting out this pattern and hoping we have strength at the end to survive?

When things are threatening to careen out of control, we have to learn to ask for help. It’s extremely difficult to jump in front of the avalanche and stop this momentum on our own. It is possible, however, to halt this destructive pattern if we humbly ask for help. In fact, it’s the only way we can expect to find lasting recovery from the hurts we are enduring.

Walk Off Story

I've written many times about my love of a good story. I love to hear how details work together to create unique moments. I want to see tales of triumph, compassion, and genuine human emotion. This is one of the reasons I love sports. It's not just to see great athletic feats and the power of a team coming together, but also to witness the stories that flow from competition, sacrifice, and loyalty.

This week my beloved NY Mets were active in trade talks as we are positioned to make a playoff run for the first time in several years. One of our players, Wilmer Flores, was part of a trade which was reported to be completed on Wednesday night. With social media leading the charge the fans in the stands of the game knew about it before the players on the field. As word quickly spread to the dugout of Wilmer's impending trade, he became emotional as he realized he was leaving the only team he had been part of during his professional career. His tears were captured by the cameras and quickly became a focal point of sports shows that evening. All of this soon changed however as the trade fell through and he remained a Met.

Two days later Wilmer received a standing ovation from the Mets fans when he came to bat. They were showing their appreciation for an athlete who clearly loved playing for his home team. While everyone was enjoying the feel-good moment for a homegrown player, no one could have anticipated the conclusion to these three days. Locked in a tie ballgame against the first place team, the Mets won when Wilmer hit a walk-off home run in extra innings. While writers and journalists tried to capture the emotion of the moment there is no real way to encapsulate the range of emotions this young man felt over three days. His joy and sorrow were as palpable and genuine as the obvious love shared between teammates and fans.

This is a great reminder of the power of a story and how sometimes life is better than anything we could come up with on our own. These are found in places all around us if we're willing to look for them.

TBH

Grace based recovery ministries often use the phrase "rigorous honesty" to describe an essential element of healing. It's the idea that we have to consciously strive to be honest with ourselves while giving trustworthy people that same access. Rigorous is an accurate descriptor as it will involve hard work that will sometimes push the limits of self-control, discipline, and comfort. 

Part of the reason we are in need of recovery (and we all are) is that we have avoided complete honesty and have lived with easy versions of the truth. Usually this only includes the parts that we are most comfortable hearing instead of the complete story. Until we are willing to fully and consistently face the truth we won't be able to engage in the recovery we desperately desire.

Slow Recovery

I remember being ghastly ill once when I was in high school. I had a severe cold/flu that knocked me out of commission for a couple of days. It was all of the usual nasty stuff: congestion, fever, aches, dizziness, etc. I woke up feeling better one morning and decided that I should probably go back to school. I remember walking down the hall of our house and turning to go into the kitchen and suddenly realizing that I was falling to the ground. I knew that I was falling, but there was nothing that I could do about it. I distinctly remember slamming into the wall and knocking our cat's food and water bowl across the room as I laid there. I really had thought that I was feeling better, but apparently my equilibrium was still off.

Have you ever felt like that after a big, tough event in your life? You believe you're feeling better and might be starting to recover then suddenly lose your balance and find yourself falling over. It happens to us spiritually, emotionally, and mentally after we've dealt with loss and sudden changes in life situations. Falling down reminds us that healing is a work in progress and that sometimes the pace is slower than we would like it to be. When we hit the ground it's wise to take a moment before we gently get back up. We may not be healing at the rate we thought we were so we might need to take it a bit more slowly and give ourselves the time we need to recover. It's wiser to ease our way back into things instead of repeatedly crashing.

Scar Tales

I have a few scars on my body: one on my forehead from tackling a church pew at 3 years old, one on my hand from catching a broken ceramic bowl and getting 10 stitches, and a couple on my right knee from arthroscopic surgery many years ago. My wife has her own collection ranging from c-sections to cancer-related surgeries, and nerve reattachment in her finger.

Our body's scars tell personal stories of accidents, healing, and recovery. Our emotional scars do the same even though they may not be as outwardly visible. Sometimes our inward scars scare us and we try to hide them instead of confronting them and then telling our story of healing and recovery. For our own growth and the benefit of others, we have to not be afraid to tell those stories. Our testimony can encourage others and speak of the healing power of God in our lives. They help describe who we are and the journey we have taken to be at this point. We can help people in similar circumstances endure the hard parts of recovery and realize that they aren't alone in the painful part of their journey.

My scars don't inhibit me like they used to, but they do remind me of the path I've taken to get here and the power that is found in sharing recovery.