Baby Steps

If there's one thing I've learned so far this year it is baby steps are good.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have chosen to take a medical leave of absence from school this semester due to some headache issues. With my headaches I have been prescribed physical therapy to hopefully help heal my poor little head. We've discovered that my neck and nervous system are very sensitive, and we actually have to desensitize my neck. This is a long process with a lot of meticulous things. My take home exercises are simple, but actually really hard.

Each week at physical therapy I tend to learn something new. Something new about the nervous system, something new that's wrong with brain, something new that takes away my pain, something new. Often times these new things are exciting - Oh if I sit this way it helps my neck and head feel better. If I do this exercise it will make my eye reflexes better which will help my dizziness. Today I learned that part of my dizziness is due to a struggle of communication with the nerves in my ear to my brain, on the right side. A baby step - another little source of the problem. Another little thing to do to help make things better.

In life we all have goals - to graduate from college, get a job, get married, enter a religious vocation, have babies, run a half marathon, run a full marathon, complete a triathlon, learn to sew, learn to knit, learn to play tennis. The possibilities are truly endless.

I've ran a half marathon, so let's use that.
You don't just wake up and say "I'm gonna run a half marathon today" (well some people do...). Once you decide to run one you find one and sign up, and you start training. Lets say you've never ran before in your life. So you start small. You start by running a mile, maybe two. Then after a week you work up to three, and you keep adding miles, each week you add one, maybe two miles. Then before you know it you've trained your muscles to carry oxygen and trained your body to be able to run 13 miles without stopping. But when you first started you could only run a mile. You had to make baby steps. Half way through your training you twisted your ankle, you had to slow down your running for a week - and you couldn't pick up right where you left off, you had to slow down, take baby steps.

So often in this life we want to rush through things, and so often we want immediate results. We forget the importance of baby steps. But if there's one thing I'm learning it's the importance of baby steps.

With the start of physical therapy I hoped that by this point I would be feeling almost back to normal. It would take around 4-5 sessions and everything would be better. Not the case. Each day this week was a little different. Two of them were really good with minimal pain, most days I suffered quite a bit, but was able to fulfill my daily duties. I realized that it was going to be a long process, full of baby steps. Learning to embrace the little wins we do get. So I fully embraced my two good days, and rejoiced, and the others, I also rejoiced.

And I think we can apply this is all areas of our life, especially with God. So often we expect him to work. We pray for something and we want to see it immediately. We want instant results. And sometimes that's how God works, but most of the time it's not. Most of the time he works quietly, slowly preparing us for what he has in store. So though we may grow discouraged in our walk Christ, especially when we don't see the results we want, let us rejoice in the good things we see in day to day life. Let us rejoice in the sunshine. Let us rejoice in getting out of class early. Let us rejoice in sharing life with a beautiful friend. Let us rejoice in the things each day that make life worth living.

God bless.