Broken Things Can Be Fixed

Being Broken, I roll over and apologize yet again. I am sorry I am broken. I mean it when I say it.

Agonizing pain makes me the unbearable one. I moan, I cry, I writhe in pain. That isn’t what really hurts. The real pain comes when it wakes you up. When this beast reaches past me and begins its assault on you. It strikes again in the middle of the day when a young boy wants to play and have fun, but he can’t ask because he loves me and he sees that I am in agony. So he suffers quietly trying not to be hurt that he can’t ask. Always the thoughtful loving child he would not want me to suffer. I don’t want him to suffer and feel alone even in my presence. This disease spreads the pain far beyond my arm, my leg, etc. It reaches out and it latches on to the minds and hearts of those I love. It shatters dreams, it breaks hearts, it damages everything it touches.

Broken things can be fixed. Sometimes. They don’t always look the same when they are put back together. Re-purposing, taking something of one use and redefining its use. That is now the story of my life. I won’t accept being useless. I am not. I have purpose, I have life and use left in me. It won’t look the same. The clay has to be reshaped. The design is no longer of my making. I am now at the mercy. Mercy. Grace given when it isn’t earned. Help, I need help. I have never needed help in my life. Now, I need help. I need to find a way through the darkness.

Independent. I have always been a wandering gypsy soul. Stubborn. It’s in my genes. The hardest thing to navigate has been the stripping down of all of that. I can’t just go, can’t just do, can’t just be “me.” Life has changed. I thought it was for the worse. But, along with being all that I am, I am one thing indefinitely. I am the eternal Panglossian!  I look for hope and beauty in the worst of situations. And I have found some real treasures. Most of all, the support and love of those closest to me. I am actually learning, learning that I can let others love me. Who knew. I thought I was supposed to do all the work, be on top of handling everything, making sure it all runs smooth and without any hassle to those I love. I have never been able to delegate, I don’t trust any one else to do the job without being bothered by doing it, so I do as much of all of it as I can. No, I am not an overachiever lol, not at all. I just want everything to be perfect! Well, guess what? It isn’t, and I’m not. Not perfect and NOT independent. I now am forced to rely on Mister to love me enough to help me. Guess what, strangely enough, he does! I would NOT have known the depth of his love, or the truth of it without this disease. It has brought me faith in another human, in humanity. It has brought me to a humble place where I can learn compassion, a healthy place to serve from.

I am at the beginning of my journey. It’s been just over a year now. There will be many stories on the way. There will be a lot of pain. There will be endless tears and screams.  There will be doubts and fears. I will think many unthinkable thoughts. When it threatens to overwhelm me, I will adjust, take inventory, and recalculate and make new goals. I will find the beauty in the ashes, I will rise up on wings as eagles, I will be more than a conqueror and I will be loved. This is the gift that I am left with facing the beast CRPS. I am given the chance to live in faith, to find hope, to be a light, and to receive love and mercy.  It does have a glorious side and a beautiful ending. No matter what. I live in a broken body and a broken spirit. Broken things can be rebuilt for a new purpose and a new glory and a new day. I am not a broken person, I am just being redesigned.

~Wait for it…..it will be amazing!!!

xo ~Rikki Lin

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Today’s guestblogger, Rikki Lin is only one year into her journey with chronic pain and she is such an inspiration already. She has started to rebuild a new chronic life by upstarting an oilfield jobs help page and she creates information posters for the CRPS community among other projects geared toward helping people. I’m very grateful she has given a piece of her beautiful self to us today.