Let pain be your guide.

On Thursday, I am going back to visit crazy Nurse Martha. And while I love a good reunion, this isn't one I was planning on.

I have to have disc fusion surgery in my neck. While it sounds grosser than it is, they basically open up my throat, put a bone spacer between two of my vertebrae, and then screw in a titanium plate to keep everything in place. Ok, it is pretty gross. 

Having two disc surgeries in one year is a bummer. And as I am mentally preparing for Thursday while recounting last December, it's amazing how different life is for me now. God has found a way to help me work through a lot of emotional pain and helped me to forgive myself and quit being so hard on myself.

They are going to put this on my
insides. Titanium. X-Men here I come.

I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but: do you ever find that you beat yourself up WAY more than you should? I think of it this way: I would NEVER let someone treat a friend the way I treat myself. 

I think we live in a place where it is expected to beat yourself up. It is frowned upon to be ok with who you are and where you are. Especially in Christian circles. We are the worst about this. We compare, we measure, we criticize, and we convince ourselves that we are not good enough. Never satisfied and never happy.

So what if we were able to accept ourselves no matter what? No matter what grade we got? No matter what someone says about us? No matter what weight we are?

I am dreading recovery because, I don't know how long it will be. "Let pain be your guide" is what my doctor says. I wish I could take this more seriously. If I let pain be my guide, maybe I would stop beating myself up after that open wound I create. If I let pain be my guide, I would be patient with myself when the timeline is not what I had planned. If I let pain be my guide, I would forgive myself as I forgive others.

What would you do differently if you let pain be your guide?

We miss your smile.

The other day I was having... a day. You know the one. Where you just want to stay in bed all day and conversations are an effort and you are an emotional ball of extremes.

And then this happened.

I was walking past our indoor pool at the Y. There is a wall of glass outside of my office where you can look directly into the pool complex. At this particular time of day, our camp high hopes kids were swimming and that's always chaos. Laughing, splashing, yelling, general pool fun.

No one was paying attention to me as I surveyed the scene. Except for her. While everyone around her was going nuts and having a big time, she took the time to pause and smile. And it wasn't just one of those fleeting, courtesy smiles...it was genuinely long enough for me to quickly snap a photo on my phone.

I have been thinking about the smiling girl ever since.

You know when you are walking down the hallway and say "Hey how you doing?" to someone, but you rarely mean it? What would I really do if someone told me how they are REALLY doing. Would I be ready to stop my day to listen to what they are struggling with? I wish I could say yes emphatically. But typically I am doing that courtesy ask. That courtesy smile. That courtesy "how are you?"

So I am trying something new. I am trying to be the girl in the photo. In the midst of my daily chaos. And you know what? It's working. People need my smile. People need your smile. They miss it. There was a time in your life that everyone got to see it, and they need it back as much as you do.

Let's make a pact to value people over experiences. I don't know about you, but I hope that at the end of my life, I am remembered for the people I impacted and not the things I've done or the places I've been. And plus, I don't know if you've seen my dimples when I smile, but they are INCREDIBLE.

-Liz