When God Sits You Down: Lessons from Two Broken Bones and a Staircase Workout

Sometimes life slows you down... and sometimes it knocks you right off your feet.

Well, the news wasn’t quite what we hoped for. I’ll be having surgery to repair two broken bones in my foot—plates, screws, the whole hardware aisle! In a few months, I’ll (literally) be back on my feet again.

This will be my sixth surgery in four years. You’d think I’d have earned a punch card by now: “Buy five, get one free!” But this one has humbled me in a whole new way.

When I went through chemo, radiation, the DIEP procedure, and even two new knees, I could still manage to be fairly independent. But this time, being completely non-weight-bearing, has been a different kind of challenge.

We live in a multi-level home, and let’s just say the seven stairs to the bathroom and my office have become my daily Everest. Crutches? Not happening. So I’ve adopted a new workout routine: the backward-stair-butt-scoot. My arms and shoulders have never been stronger. Who needs the gym when every bathroom trip counts as strength training?

As I prepare for surgery, I keep returning to these words from Suffering Is Never for Nothing by Elisabeth Elliot:

“The deepest things that I have learned in my own life have come from the deepest suffering.
And out of the deepest waters and the hottest fires have come the deepest things that I know about God.”

Through it all, God’s promise remains steady:

“I will be with you.”

So I have a choice — be frustrated by this forced season of rest, or accept it as an invitation to truly rest in Him.
To slow down enough to notice what I might have rushed past before.

There’s a lot I can’t do right now.
But there’s also a lot I can do: pray, reflect, laugh at the ridiculousness of it all, and trust that even this detour has purpose.

Maybe that’s something for all of us to remember: sometimes God sits us down (quite literally!) so He can help us stand stronger later.

Here’s to scooting through the hard seasons with a little grace, a little grit, and a lot of faith. 💛