Complex.

It was a simple question.

“What happened here?”

Though I knew specifically what she was talking about, I mindlessly went down so many other roads.

Like those nights when I was 10 and felt so small and helpless because there was yelling and arguing and things being thrown around upstairs.

Like that time my boss said, “No one cares about your opinion,” after I’d finished an interview with a woman who’d been the victim of sexual and racial discrimination.

Something about THIS moment of fear allowed a wave of old junk to rush in. Tell me if this happens to you sometimes, too.

So I recognize the old junk and I name it. Fear.

But there’s something else in this moment, too.

It’s Pride. I don’t want anyone to know I’m hurting.

I want to be the strong one, the helper, the one who has it all together.

THIS shatters THAT.

So I dig into God’s word to encourage a friend (because that’s what I do now to take a shot at the devil) and this time I encouraged SEVERAL friends because I know the TRUTH that I don’t have to let fear cripple me and I want others to know this freedom, too.

And I find this from Paul who was talking about a ‘thorn in his flesh’ that God would not take from him:

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power will rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9-10 NIV)

And I answer the question. And the doctor tells me it could take two months to heal and I could be on crutches most of that time.

And I admit to him that I am afraid if it doesn’t heal properly I will never be able to run again.

And that running is my drug.

And he attempts some kind of empathy like I’m overreacting as he jokingly tells my son how many toes he’s had to cut off.

I wince at the foot doctor humor and tell him I know that God is with me but I’d like to keep all my toes if possible.

“My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.”

Grace flowed in and I smiled.

Questions are simple.

Answers are more complex.

For more: I love what Holly Furtick preached about being a complex versus a complicated woman. It encouraged, challenged, and convicted me. The sermon was from our church’s Moodswingers series entitled “The Orchid and the Oak Tree.”