Change Already!

WARNING!!! This post might be a little fuzzy as my brain is still on some heavy pain killers due to surgery, but I wanted to post about something about my foot since that’s what’s on my mind these days.   

In order to do that, let me back up a bit and say a little something about the history of my foot.

In short: It hurts.

Actually, it’s been hurting for about 3 years now.  One of the bones was slightly twisted thanks to all these babies and some poorly supportive shoes, and it made it uncomfortable to walk normally.  For a variety of reasons I have been both eager to have it fixed and also unable to move forward with the surgery.  Recently, that all changed. 

Surgery got planned, I got excited.  Yay! I’m finally going to have this problem fixed.  No more painful foot!  And I won’t limp anymore, and I will be able to exercise again, and….on an on with all the visions of the new and improved foot.

Enter surgery day: Go into surgery, get foot repaired. Wake up.  First Reaction: “Wait! I changed my mind! I don’t want to have this done! It hurts! A whole bunch- like, WAY more than I thought it would!”  “Maybe I’ll just stick with the problem I had. It wasn’t so bad…”

Now fortunately for me, with this issue it’s just “tough noogies”!  There’s no real going back.  I suppose the doctor could put things back in the broken state, but that wouldn’t make the pain go away at this point.  My only choice is to move forward through the pain to recovery and the opportunity that things will be better than before. I’m sort of forced to improve here.

That’s not the way a lot of life is however, and that’s what I’ve been thinking about.  How often do I say, “I want to lose weight,” but then when I actually have to avoid my late-night crackers and cheese, I change my tune.  The pain of change is uncomfortable.  If I want to have something different in my life it comes with setting down what is comfortable and normal and taking up something different, weird, or uncomfortable and dealing with it until it’s familiar.

I do this with food, with schedules, with my responses to my children…lots of things.  I want to get better.  REALLY!  But change makes me feel vulnerable, naked, like I’m floundering, unsure, and quite often involves pain.  Am I willing to go through that to get what I want?  It’s really the only way.

"By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going."
ESV, Hebrews 11:8

God had some big things in store for Abraham, but he had to chose to go without knowing completely what was going on.  That must have been naturally unsettling. Yet, the end result was so much blessing that Abraham would have chosen to follow if he had known.  Of course this doesn’t take into account that Abraham was willing to obey God even if it didn’t turn out wonderful, but that’s another story.  The point is, relocating his entire family without clear direction was harder than staying where he was.  But he did it anyway.

With my foot, I don’t really have a choice right now, the deal has been struck and there is no going back.  But I go back all the time on other things like over eating and yelling…I want to say yes to the pain on those things too.

How about you? Any areas that jump out at you to say yes to the pain of change?