Talipes Equinovarus

       I don't like being needy.  But we need to be needed.  It is the way we learn to care for one another.  And, it is what keeps us humble.  Neediness is what allows us to step out to serve and to be served. 

     When I am vulnerable, others have to do things for me that I cannot do on my own.  It causes me to go to someone else, ask for help, wait for them, and allow them to do things the way they would do them.  
     There is good in vulnerability for me.  While others have to do for me, I have to wait and relinquish control.  In this letting go, I am able to heal.

      You see, I have had pain far too long. Pain that I have pushed through when all along I really needed help from other people.  In putting off this slowing down of my life, I have put off the restoration I need. I have needed to come off of the front lines, to go back to base for a shower and a hot meal and for some clean clothes while someone else takes my place.  

     I was born with a foot that needed correcting.  If my congenital deformity, talipes equinovarus, more commonly known as a clubbed foot, had not been corrected, I would not be walking very well. I remember seeing a young man walking along a side walk one day with a limp, going slowly, walking with difficulty, almost on his ankle.  That would have been me.

      Thankfully, medicine has come a long way and this condition can be easily corrected through serial casting, minor surgeries, and braces.  I had very little of these interventions.  Prayer is what really healed me as a child.  My son, who was born with the same thing, had the works.  His was more severe.  He is doing well now.   

     Pain in my foot has demanded my attention.  I could not go further without other’s help.  I had become too weak to walk on my own.  C.S. Lewis has said, “Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” 

     I have been made more vulnerable so that I could be made stronger in the end.  I will be like Bill the bird for a little while.

     The kids found a Robin fledgling a week ago and named him Bill.  We warned them that he would need constant care and probably wouldn't live long. But, they were insistent.  The kids fed him, carried him around, made a comfortable box for him, and generally doted on the little bird.  One thing that amazed us was how other birds reacted to him.  When Bill was outside on our porch in his box, a       Flycatcher who was nesting nearby would come and feed it as well.  Our resident Bluebird came and checked Bill out too.  Everyone slowed down to care for the little bird. 
     We have all slowed down a little more because of my foot.  And that is ok, because in my weakness I am made stronger.  How can this be?  It is another great paradox of life.

      When I am weak in an area of my life I must rely on someone else; thereby necessitating that my life must get bigger because my circle has widened. I have to let someone else in and they have to let me in.  I have to increase my strength in places where I am weak and so I must learn from someone stronger than me.  It takes humility and quieting myself to listen and watch and learn.  It means that I must trust someone else.  Becoming vulnerable means taking a risk.  It goes against my desire to do all I can on my own in order to avoid any possibility of pain. But pain is really an indicator that we need help beyond ourselves.

     There is a story in the Bible about a man who waited by a pool for help.  He had tried to do what he could to help himself, but to no avail.  He needed a savior. 

“Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.” John 5:2-9

        The man at the pool of Bethesda had to wait.  He could not even get to the place of healing on his own, he needed another, he needed the Healer.  But if he had been able to procure his own healing, he never would have met the Savior, he never would have received complete healing.  It was worth the wait, it was worth the vulnerability.  Thank God for his vulnerability, his need, for in his need he came into a healing like none other he had ever known.  One that would go beyond the restoration of his body, one that would bring his soul rest.
        When the wearing of the walking cast, and taking steroids, and the making of my new orthotic shoes is over with, I will be able to tackle those things I was doing in pain with strength.  And I am thankful for the pain. My pain has brought me into a deeper awareness of my own finiteness.  It has caused me to notice people who walk with more difficulty than most.  It has made me see how I take much of the grace and many of the blessings in my life for granted.  I have learned that I must walk with more wisdom.  Every step counts and has more meaning.  And so I am learning to “keep in step with the Spirit”.  I have even contemplated running.  But even if I never run a 5k or even one mile, I want to run my life without fear of what may come.  I want to run without the things that weigh me down and hold me back.  And for that, there is only one place to run.  Like David, “I will not merely walk, but run the way of Your commandments, when You give me a heart that is willing. Teach me, O Lord, the way of Your statutes, and I will keep it to the end steadfastly. Give me understanding, that I may keep Your law; yes, I will observe it with my whole heart. Make me go in the path of Your commandments, for in them do I delight.” Amp. Psalm 119:32-35.   

~Your Fellow Sojourner

I have to end with this scene.