There are so many parts that are mostly overlooked when it comes to healing. My hand is no longer exciting to hear updates about, and my heart healing from the brutal past year is even less interesting.

I am learning a lot about the injury and healing process in general; whether it is a physical injury like almost cutting off three fingers or having your heart damaged. – If you have not heard the story about my hand, here is the 20minute YouTube video of me sharing about what happened.

However, I have been thinking a lot about how much things just take time, and in the midst of healing, everything just feels like it takes forever, and it hurts more than you would expect. But, some of the most frustrating parts about healing in any capacity, is that the process largely leaves so many questions unanswered and creates space for moments to be replayed obsessively… And, often the only real answer to everything is just to give it more time to allow for healing.

I’m not so good at choosing the patience that time needs in order to heal or allow things to settle and work themselves out. I lean severely hard right towards pushing, driving, and doing literally anything and everything to help myself get better in any possible way faster.

I have been learning so much about forcing myself to heal well and completely through my hand, but I’m also simultaneously getting progressively more frustrated at where I am not at currently. But, my hand injury has also created space for me to process the last year or two of my life, the hurts and heartache that I’ve experienced, and how I feel now about it all.

I went back and read my prayer journals from last fall. – I was full of pain, questions, frustration, and so many ‘why’s’ aimed at God. And a year later, I still don’t know. I don’t have answers yet, and I still don’t see why things had to be so painful… I have not magically found my fairytale perfect story ending. There is no prince to sweep me off my feet, and the animals are definitely not helping with the chores.

I’m currently 12 weeks post hand accident, and one year post massive heartbreak from a man I loved, and 11 months since losing my job; so much has happened in each of those time frames. My life doesn’t even remotely look the same as it did a few months or a year ago. In some ways it makes me sad to remember just how much has been lost, and everything and everyone that has done damage. In other ways, I am ok with the fact that I have an entirely different life now.

I have been thinking a lot about the damage done, and how I just don’t have answers. I don’t see clearly why God allowed things to happen the way He did, and I really don’t see how He is healing and redeeming things…I don’t see where He is using these parts of my story and life for His good, it doesn’t make sense to me, and it may never.

This is the overlooked part of most people’s stories that we don’t want to tell or we all just forget about on the other side… Sometimes I think it’s because we want to overlook the frustrating middle, the timeframe where we just have no option but to keep moving forward one day at a time. I hate the seasons of life when I can’t see why God isn’t doing what I feel like He should, I don’t like when patience and perseverance are my only options. These overlooked parts and frustrating parts of my story forces me towards my only choice: to actively focus on what is right in front of me, choose gratefulness for small things, not obsess about what is behind and all the ways things did not go how I wanted them to go.

But, that’s the point, things will never be what we dream up in our fake lives in our head. No one could have prepared me for sustaining a major work accident six months after launching into a full time small business… And then having to essentially sit on the sidelines for months.
No one knows what to tell me about why things went down with the guy who broke my heart… And truly no one knows why I continue to not be able to find “the one”, and instead just find various levels of frustration and confusion.
No one can tell me what God has planned next or how long it will be until I understand… If I will ever understand on this side of eternity, without making up a largely false narrative about what His reasons and purpose were… No one knows.

For the most part my hand doesn’t hurt consistently anymore. It still gets shooting pains, weird sensations, and is extremely sore after PT or a particularly aggressive day of home exercises and stretching. – This is also how my heart feels; for the most part it doesn’t hurt anymore, sometimes it gets shooting pains, or feels weird things.. and it is often just sore and exhausted.

But, if I am being totally honest, most days I’m just entirely over the process of healing now… For both my hand and my heart, I’m just tired of it all. I don’t know that I will ever be in a place of not needing some sort of healing, but at this point it seems like all I do is work on healing.

I’m tired of needing help, I’m annoyed that I can’t move my fingers like I want to, and I can’t feel the things that I need to.

I’m tired of working to heal my heart and having to actively focus on not giving in to hopelessness.

It’s hard to explain accurately to anyone who has never experienced it, what it is like to almost completely cut off three fingers, and then go through the healing process.

It’s equally as hard to accurately explain to someone who has never experienced it, what it is like to be in my your 30’s and single, and actively not allow yourself to become hopeless or unhealthy.

I’m full on antsy now most of the time, and I get really frustrated that I cannot go back to working full-time yet. I still cannot workout like I want to, and simple things are exhausting and take an exorbitant amount of focus… But, my only option is to take every day one day at a time.

I see every day how much my heart and hand are learning how to heal, and the process is slow, arduous, confusing, and there is nothing normal about it… So, on top of it all, I don’t have any scales to tell me if I’m navigating it well or how long I have left. I still don’t have answers, it is mostly unknowns ahead of me (and a mountain of bills), but what I can say is that I am learning intimately about in my own impatience, how much I constantly try to check and figure out where I am and where I should go from here; when my only real option is to give things time..

The overlooked parts of healing means that I have to take it one day at a time, no matter how I feel, and let God do His will.