On my knees.

Shrugging it off, keeping a straight face and acting strong about it was not courage, but pride. Perhaps it was for my own sake that I always kept a strong front and said, “It’s okay, I’m fine. No problem, God is good.”

I didn’t realise until today, while sitting in my physiotherapist’s room, just how much it hurt.

“How’ve you been doing?”

“I’m good, it’s no big deal,” I said. Then the tears came and wouldn’t stop, and I was surprised because I had never cried that much about my injury before. There were a few tears in the beginning, but I always stiffened up and told myself that it was no big deal.

Stop being such a wuss, people have all sorts of terrible illnesses and have had to cope with them. Think about the patient you spoke to today. She had a brain and intestinal infection from her medication for her inborn blood disorder and you don’t see her crying and calling for a pity party, do you.

Today, I realised, that that was not courage, but pride. And until I could allow myself to fall apart at God’s feet, to say I am sad, I am affected, He could not begin the healing work in my heart.

I’m sad about this fracture, that it’s not healing well. Is that wrong? To know that I will not be able to do what I love, to run nor bike for a year, maybe more. To know that, like many athletes who have written about their pelvic stress fractures online, I may never run or bike properly ever again- contrary to what the doctors say. To know that anorexia had so much to do with this specific type of injury, that the illness has returned to remind me of its evil. To be constantly reminded of the pain when I’m walking and even sitting.

“Let’s work around this. What would you like to do? You can always find substitutes. I know a very good aerobics class teacher, and also, we have… … “

But I didn’t want to. Deep down inside, I knew God’s message for me this season was to rest, not to run around finding replacements for what He intentionally took away. This is a season for throwing old crutches away so I can truly find what ought to be important to me- God. This is a season for me to realise that unless I learn my lesson to stop self-striving, to appreciate the art of living life with balance and in moderation, I will keep making the same mistake of hurting myself, over and over, in different ways.

“No, I’m through with this. I don’t want to do this anymore. I’m hanging up my bike. I don’t want to do this rehab thing anymore- it’s not helping, it’s giving me pain.”

I think she knew that I knew that they knew very little about pelvic stress fractures.

“… I think you’ve hit more than a road bump. You’ve hit a wall, haven’t you?”

Yes, so I have. This is it, God. This is what you wanted right? To have me on my knees. After all, this was what I prayed for, to learn humility and to always remain broken and contrite before you. You have such a sense of humour.

I wanted to skip my physiotherapy appointment today because we had class. But class got cancelled, and a random acquaintance on Facebook ( a paramedic I met a year ago) offered to drive me from my hospital in the west to my physiotherapist in the east- I wouldn’t have made it otherwise.

And so you don’t know how much it meant to me, to find your email when I got home. I was tired from crying, I wanted to sleep, and then your words gave me strength and reminded me that God provides us with strength through angels at every step of the way.

Dear Wai Jia,

How are you? I don’t think you would remember me, but I wrote to you really long ago and you replied me with a whole long blogpost and two beautiful pictures I still keep printed and stuffed in my diary. Thank you so much for that reply, i never expected you would reply so wholeheartedly to a ‘stranger’. I read and reread your letter, and I thank God for speaking to me through your words.

I still read your blog when I have the time and I think you are really an inspiration to so many of us out day who are trying to cope with this illness. I’ll be doing my A levels in december, I never imagined even being here because two years ago, all I wanted was to take pills and sleep forever.

The stuff you shared gave me courage to visit a dumpsite in phillippines and i just broke down and cried over there, to see how the little kids can love God so much when they have so little….Dear Wai Jia, you’re really brave and I know you will be a wonderful missionary doctor. I think you’ve touched many with the stuff you wrote, me, for one. I would love to be a doctor too, but sshhh, don’t tell anyone because so many people tell me that it’s impossible, especially with everything that has happened in the past. Sometimes, I feel like telling them that ‘I know a girl who suceeded!’, but I end up just agreeing I should pursue some other career.

Recently I read about your injury, I just wanted to say take care (: I don’t have much beautiful words of encouragement to give, just that I’m sure God loves you so much that this is all His plan. Someone once told me that God gave her cancer so she could comfort those with cancer when she overcame it. Perhaps that is too, God made you go through all these so that you can share with so many out there. Don’t ever underestimate the power of what you write…I am some random stranger in some random corner of Singapore, but I find HOPE each time in your writtings.

Please tell me if I could help anyway in the project of A Taste of Rainbow, it’s a wonderful thought that people out there will come to know more. You’re truly a rainbow to me, and to many others i’m sure… and may you always stay as one.

God bless you always.

With love,
T

Thank you, T, for leaving a note. Thank you for reminding me of God’s good purposes and plans for our lives. I cried when I read your note, because these past few days, I’ve been meeting so many people who asked me pointedly, “So do you still want to be a missionary doctor?” and “When will you start seeing someone? Don’t you know it’s important to settle down? I don’t think you’re short of suitors, so what’s the problem?”

I cried, because I find myself understanding the realities of life now, the burdens and tempatations and strongholds that possessions and the world can have on us. Even in the past year, I have changed, and I worry about the kind of person and doctor I am becoming.

I cried, because just today as I walked home from the hospital, I thought to myself, how foolish I have been to tell God I have no time to go out and do this dating crap because I am busy training and studying and doing my own things, and what’s wrong with that, when the truth is that, I have too much pride. I’m fine by myself, God. All these people end up hurting me anyway. And then I realised, that unless I take the opportunity to humble my own heart in this regard, God could very well choose to break me in another way I least imagined.

Break me, not because He is sadistic, but because of His great, unfathomable love.

And thank you, T, for giving me a new perspective about my injury- that even though it hurts me to know that anorexia had a large part to play in it, that this can be an experience to strengthen not only myself but other injured patients and athletes. Interestingly, by divine coincidence, I bumped into a friend today, who’s one of the top triathletes in our country. I shared with him the story about my injury, and he said his sister had suffered the exact same thing. “She trains more than me, is skinny as a stick, hasn’t even had her period even though she’s almost 20 and had a fracture on her inferior ramus some time back. “

Thank you, T, for reminding me, that my story isn’t over, and I have a responsibility, to myself, God and others, to get well. Even this fracture, is part of the Rainbow story that has yet to be finished. I have to admit, I’m falling apart, but it is in a good kind of way, in the way I had prayed for. I’m so, so glad you had a memorable time in the Philippines, and I hope that won’t be your last trip.

Okay God, you win. I surrender. This biking thing is over, I’m hanging up shoes up, and I’m on my knees.