Broken

 

We’ve all felt broken at times, and we’ve all dealt with broken things: broken hearts, broken trust, broken hope, broken friendship, broken plans. As many of you know, I fractured my ankle this year. I was devastated and felt like my summer was ripped out from under me. I had a lot of dark and lonely days. Among other things, I felt like I was letting all the participants in my group fitness classes down and I felt bad that I was holding Rob back from what our summer was supposed to look like. I realize that compared to others, this was a small trial, but for me, it was hard. Being active, being outdoors, and being with the people in my High classes all bring me so much joy and purpose, and the absence of these was definitely felt.   

I took this picture the day it happened. I was playing Spikeball at girls camp and rolled my ankle. As I walked it off, I felt super dizzy and started to crouch down. I passed out and scraped my face on the gravel. As I was icing my ankle in their staff cabin, I could feel my face stinging and used my camera to see how the scrapes on my face looked. I snapped this picture when I did that. I was feeling physically and emotionally broken with no idea how much it would impact my year. You can probably relate to these feelings in some way. Early on I felt this impression, “I love you enough to make you slow down a little.” As I slowed down throughout the months of healing, I learned a lot of small lessons about being broken, and I want to share some of those with you.

 

Choosing Earth Was Choosing Brokenness

During this time of healing, I had the chance to talk to one my closest friends about it. She reminded me that even professional athletes and Olympians get injured sometimes. These are people that are on strict diet and exercise programs and who have personal trainers looking out for them. Even in a structured environment, those who choose to compete and put themselves in intense physical situations are also choosing the likelihood of injury at some point during their career. Similarly, when we chose to come to earth and put ourselves in this intense, but rewarding, environment, we chose brokenness. By being here and becoming mortal and living in an imperfect world, we knew that we would all feel a little broken sometimes. Brokenness is not a sign of weakness, but rather an important part of the human experience.

Pass With Care

To preface this, I should explain that I initially thought that my ankle was just sprained. I mostly rested but tried working out on it a few times and each time felt pretty clearly that it wasn’t ready yet and gave it a few more weeks before trying again. After 2 months of my ankle “sprain” not healing, I finally went to a doctor to figure out why it was taking so long. He took x-rays and told me that although it was healed now, he could see that there had been a hairline fracture and he recommended that I start 6 weeks of physical therapy to help restore its strength.

I had recently told Rob how frustrated I was that my body was so weak and wasn’t recovering as fast as it should. Little did I know I had done trek, another big hike and even taught those couple High classes on a fractured ankle! In reality, my body had been doing so much for me and wasn’t weak at all. It made me think about how sometimes I’m also hard on other people, when in reality, I have no idea what they’re actually going through. Maybe they’re feeling a little broken and giving the very best they can.

I think about this every time I see one of those “Pass With Care” signs on the highway. We have no idea what other people are going through. In fact, everybody is going through something. I am constantly amazed by the battles people are fighting. It doesn’t take much for us to approach every interaction we have with care and treat people with kindness as we pass them day in and day out.

Lifted

As I was putting up our Christmas tree last month, I found that one of the large branches at the bottom was broken and hanging down at an awkward angle toward the floor. This was my parents’ old tree, so it’s been well loved and used for many years. I immediately thought to use some of the smaller branches around it to wrap around different parts of the stooping branch and hold it up. It worked perfectly. It didn’t take many of the smaller branches to lift up a rather large one in comparison. This made me think of the many small efforts and messages that I received that truly lifted me and held me up. I was a heavy branch, stooping low, and God sent angels to check on me and brighten my days. These moments of uplift came from family, friends and from the Holy Spirit.

It started right away with the leaders bringing me snacks and water and the workers checking in on me and refilling my ice bag, everyone comforting me and taking care of me as I was barely keeping it together. That afternoon, our group was scheduled to go to the lake. It was a bit of a walk to get there, and I felt like I shouldn’t do it on my ankle. I stayed back and rested in the bunk room. As I laid there, I decided to read some of the scriptures for Come, Follow Me that week. By no coincidence, this is what I read: 

“Wherefore, be of good cheer, and do not fear, for I the Lord am with you, and will stand by you; and ye shall bear record of me, even Jesus Christ, that I am the Son of the living God, that I was, that I am, and that I am to come.” (D&C 68:6). 

I felt like it was God letting me know that it was all going to be okay.

I continued to receive an outpouring of love from people. My mom, sister and niece brought me lunch when I was back home the next day. Friends sent me cookies, brought by treats and participants sent me the nicest messages ensuring me that they would all be there when I came back and that they missed me. I received support from other instructors who were also not able to teach for a while. My sweet husband gave me a blessing.  A friend sent me a conference talk that had words I really needed to hear. I came home to flowers on my porch one night that I was particularly struggling. My neighbor brought over peaches and cream on another hard night. A friend invited me to go with her to Aqua Zumba because it was low enough impact for me. It makes me cry writing this, just thinking back on all of these tender mercies that came exactly when I needed them. They truly carried me until I could stand on my own.

If you would’ve told me the day it happened that I would be out for 3-4 months, I would have been shattered. But instead, I took it day by day, week by week, and somehow, I was given the strength and stamina I needed to hold on and keep being patient. God works with us little by little, day by day, week by week, month by month, offering to us the strength we need each day.

Adjustments & Motion

Early on in this trial I found myself wishing that I could go back to what I was before, that I could just have my healthy body back to how it was. I was wishing to not be changed because of the trial. I realized that I didn’t want to grow, and I didn’t want to work. I just wanted to pass the time and get back to my pre-trial state. There’s a lot of missed opportunity with this attitude. If we are willing to work through the healing and recovery, even when it’s painful and even if it’s tedious, like much of my physical therapy was, we can really grow in these things. There are different seasons in our lives, and for me, this was a season of rebuilding, regrowth, and fine tuning.

The week before I got hurt, Rob and I were talking about how the Jazz won the first 2 in their last series with the Clippers, and then lost 4 in a row, and how in the last game they lost by 11 and gave up a 25 point lead at the half. Rob said that it seemed like the Clippers made adjustments and we didn’t. I think that’s pretty applicable to a lot of things in life. If you don’t make adjustments, evaluate and change, you won’t win. You have to make adjustments when hard things are thrown your way. I feel like that conversation was preparing me for the adjustments that I would soon have to make. 

I have a beanie that has a tag on it that says, “STAY POSITIVE AND STAY IN MOTION”. I love that every time I see it, but that phrase meant more to me during this time. We can make efforts to stay in motion no matter the circumstances in our lives. I remember having this thought, ”I can be sad about this or I can make a plan about this.” Finding ways to be in motion and create traction physically, emotionally and socially made a big difference. I did my first two DIY projects, planned a girls night and began to be more committed to my physical therapy exercises. I had this impression during this time, “My physical limitations don’t limit by capacity to love.” Just because I couldn’t do my usual activities with people didn’t mean that I couldn’t adjust and find new ways to connect and be close to them.

Tomatoes and Timing

This year was my first time planting anything. In one of the planter boxes on our porch I had two tomato plants. It was really odd because one of the plants was short and had a lot of tomatoes, but the other had grown tall and didn’t have any tomatoes at all. I was a little bummed that after all my efforts to water it every day, it wasn’t producing anything. I kind of thought something was wrong with it since it was right next to the other one that was doing just fine. It wasn’t until months later that the taller, fruitless plant began to produce tomatoes. And it produced a lot. There wasn’t anything wrong with it, it was just the timing that was different. We need to be careful not to compare ourselves to those around us or to some standard of when we should be over our brokenness, physical or emotional, because this looks differently for everyone.

When something is broken, it will take time to heal. No matter what. That’s how it works. It heals slowly over time and it needs extra support while it’s doing that. There is not a quick fix to brokenness. Be patient with yourself.

I’d also like to note that it’s okay if being broken makes you scared to do something that you once weren’t afraid to do. I haven’t played Spikeball since I got hurt, which is something that I love. I also still haven’t worn the shoes I was wearing when it happened! I was scared to do High Fitness after the injury and scared that anything I would do might make it worse. If you’ve had a broken heart, you might be scared to open up to someone again. If your trust has been broken, you might need a lot of time to trust again. And that is perfectly okay. Again, the timing on these things looks different for everyone.

The Ultimate Healer

As I went to the doctor and then started physical therapy, I thought about how I told them EVERYTHING about my injury to help them understand how I was feeling so that they could best help me. I noticed this as patients would come in for their physical therapy each time I was there. The PT would catch up with them and ask how they’d been feeling, and the patient would give all the details about how it had felt in the few days since they had been there last. I had the thought, “Am I like this with my Heavenly Father?” We tell the doctors and PTs all the details because they are more knowledgeable than us and can best help us if we express to them exactly what we are experiencing. We ask them questions about our conditions and seek their advice for what we should do between our visits. Isn’t this the same with my Heavenly Father? He is the expert. He has all knowledge. Why am I not asking him more questions as I pray? Why am I not seeking His advice more to know what He would have me do between our visits? Why am I not leaning more on Jesus Christ who is the ultimate healer and who was broken too?

The Savior was broken for us so that brokenness is not permanent. He said, “Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.” (1 Corinthians 11:24) We are blessed with the opportunity to be reminded of this weekly as we partake of the sacrament.

Christ has asked us to have a broken heart and a contrite spirit. I think that having a broken heart is one of the most powerful experiences that we can have on earth. And I think Christ asks for a broken heart because, if you’ve experienced it, you know that it is one of the most humble and vulnerable places that you can possibly be in. Leonard Cohen wrote,

"There is a crack, a crack in everything

That’s how the light gets in."

Our brokenness and our cracks, allow Christ, the Light of the World, into our lives. Our brokenness gives us greater access to our Savior who was sent “to bind up the broken hearted” (Isaiah 61:1).

I’ve learned more from my brokenness that anything else in my life and that is purely because it has allowed me to come to know Jesus Christ in a more personal way. He is the ultimate healer who knows us and our brokenness, loves us perfectly and who has broken the bands of death so that we can be whole and live again.