Love Hate Relationship

Okay so I promised a post about Brazil and this one is semi related to Brazil, so it will have to do for now. As I think many of you are aware I fell in Brazil from the second level of the boat in Brazil down the to the 1st level – basically I just slipped and missed an entire flight of stairs except that the right side of my body hit every step on the way down – needless to say I looked like I had lost a pretty bad fight and I did just with the boat. It could have been tons worse so with the exception of many bruises and scratches and a hurt foot/ankle I am okay. Most of the bruises and scratches have healed since the fall so I don’t look so beat up anymore – thankfully. But the foot/ankle is taking its sweet little time to heal – if you know me at all you know this is very hard for me, but God is teaching me a lot thru this for starters how to be humble and how to allow people to serve me. Thankfully due to a pretty high pain tolerance and good meds the injury didn’t slow me down to much in Brazil – I even perfected a nice little hop step so that I could get around because I can put some weight on the front part of my toes but defiantly not on the back of my foot without a sharp shooting pain. Once I returned from Brazil I went to the doctor where thankfully there was nothing broken but I was still put on crutches for a week. Getting around on crutches is not fun at all – here is where the love hate part of the story actually comes into play. Every where I went people could hear me coming, not to mention just getting around on crutches makes you really tired and your arms really sore, actually adding a few new bruises to my body. Going to work was really tough b/c in case you aren’t aware my office building is huge and there isn’t a door anywhere close to my desk so it took every ounce of me just to get from my car to my desk on a daily basis. Have you ever tried to carry something when you are on crutches – let me save you the time don’t! Just go back to high school and carry everything in your backpack b/c that is the only way you can carry anything – trust me I tried. My boss didn’t seem to care if we had a meeting clear across the building I got to suck it up and hop all the way over there and back – needless to say I was pretty much exhausted at the end of every single day. I can’t work out – mind you that I have a race in a month from today (I am still determined to try and run it thought). Not to mention I am one of those crazy people that actually loves to workout .All that to say being injured STINKS and so does being on crutches!

Okay so now for the love part of this story – trust me this was totally a God thing b/c I wouldn’t have been able to have a positive attitude about this any other way. A ton of people have asked me in the last week what happened to my foot/ankle, which has allowed me to tell them that I fell on a boat in Brazil. Which has led to the question what was I doing in Brazil, so I have been able to tell them that I was on a mission trip to Brazil. For some people that has put an end the conversation right there, with well I hope your foot/ankle gets better, which is fine. However, more often than not I have been able to share small parts of the trip with complete strangers and share parts of my testimony and the gospel which as been really cool. It hit me last night that over the past 10 days I have been able at least once or twice a day share with complete strangers about Brazil – I realize some of you are saying that there are strangers that know more about my trip than you do but your stories will come. Please don’t get me wrong I am not thankful to be hurt by any means but I am thankful that God has been able to use me even in spite of me to share small glimpse of Himself with complete strangers. It has been a nice and even more humbling reminder of how God can use me on a daily basis in the lives of those around me. And I don’t even have the be hurt to be used either – although I don’t think I would have seen it as clearly if it has been under different circumstances. My question for you today is how can God use you today in the lives of those people around you?