Humble

I hate needing people.

I would so prefer to remain independent and aloof. It's easier. People can't hurt you if you don't let yourself open up to them.

Already this year at Asbury, God has been teaching me lessons of dependance and trust. I'm learning to trust my friends. To trust that they really are friends, in the truest sense. To trust that when they say they'd do something for me, they really mean it. To trust that they really do love me.

But a leg scooter is a whole new level of dependance.

I knew something was wrong when after two and a half months in a boot, my foot still had not healed enough for me to walk on it. When I went home for Fall Break, I saw an orthopedist and got an MRI. The results: my foot is fractured and a ligament is partially torn.

The doctor suggested a leg scooter, insisting that I need to be completely off my foot for at least a month in order for it to heal.

Sure, the leg scooter would be embarrassing, but it wouldn't be that bad, right? Everyone would get a laugh, including me; I'd get some new nicknames. Fun and games, scooting around campus for a month.

Two days on the scooter and my dream vision is already shattered.

The realization sunk in yesterday morning. I want to cry when I go up the hill to get from my dorm to the rest of campus every morning. The muscles in my left leg have been worked more in the last two days  than they have been all year, and I can feel it. My right knee is bruised and battered from all the new pressure from the scooter. Walking is slow and arduous.

But the worst part?

I can't open doors for myself. I can't carry my own plate in the cafeteria. My friends walk almost at a standstill when they walk next to me. I can see people's eyes on me. Glancing quickly up and away. They feel sorry for me.

And I hate it. I hate that I'm reliant upon other people's kindness to get into my dorm building because I can't open the door. I hate the someone else has to take my dirty dishes to trash line. I hate that when I sit with friends at dinner in the cafeteria, we have to think about where my scooter can and cannot go. I hate that when I go visit my friends at their dorm, I have to call them to open the door for me.

But it's not humiliating.

It's humbling.

How often after this will I see someone struggling to get through the door? How often will I see someone who's having a hard day and trying to mask it with a good attitude? How often will I extend a hand of kindness to someone who needs it, but doesn't want to ask for it?

And so, while I am still adjusting to life on a scooter, I am learning to be thankful for it.

I am thankful that my foot was injured.

I'm thankful I have to be dependent on others in this new and terrifyingly beautiful way.

I'm thankful that God is teaching me to be humble.