First Thursday Spiritual Journey: Balance

One night I lost my balance and fell down the stairs, landing on my left leg and breaking it badly. That night was more than twenty years ago, and this morning as I write these words I can feel stiffness and pain as I flex my left foot.

I remember congratulating my doctor after my surgery on the beautiful incision, and how he wouldn’t take the credit: “You’re just a good healer,” he told me. And now the scar is scarcely visible, unless I point it out to you. Most days my leg works exactly as it is supposed to, but sometimes it hurts. It seems most likely to happen when I’ve had several days off in a row, as I have now (our Spring Break is always at Carnival time). When I don’t wear shoes with support, but go around barefoot or in flip flops for too long, the long-ago injury makes itself felt.

I’ve lost my balance at other times in my life, and fallen into the darkness just as I fell down those stairs. Balance is a tricky thing, and so many factors can affect it. The night of my accident, I was pregnant, and my center of gravity was strange to me. I was also half asleep and in an unfamiliar place. Other times, as I’ve lost my footing and fallen into temptation, or despair, or confusion, what caused those tumbles? What made me miss those stairs? My own natural weakness, the circumstances, a moment’s lapse in concentration?

I remember that night after I fell down those stairs, apologizing repeatedly to my husband and brother-in-law as they supported me and helped me to a chair. And I remember other times in my life apologizing to people around me for the state they found me in, as I worked to regain my balance, the balance that I had lost for a moment or a season. How many times have I found myself there on the floor, needing help to stand up again, to keep moving forward?

Once that balance is lost, it’s hard to regain. There’s the whole embarrassing rigmarole of being lifted and carried, there’s the pain, there’s the midnight trip to the emergency room. I was in Japan when that tumble happened, and there everyone takes off shoes when entering a building. Everyone, I learned, includes someone who just broke her leg, and the buildings include the hospital. I remember wobbling as I struggled to replace my shoes with the hospital-issue slippers. Then followed the weeks of crutches, also a challenge to balance.

Balance is a goal I have: a balanced diet, work/life balance, a balanced checkbook. I don’t want to veer too far to one direction or the other; I want to find peace and stability. I work to keep my balance; I eat right, get enough sleep, read my Bible, go to church, pray, talk to my husband and other friends. When I lose my balance, I work to get it back. For that I lean on others, and on God; I practice taking steps again when my ability is temporarily interrupted. I remember my physical therapist praising me because I did my exercises and regained my strength. So many of her patients, she told me, didn’t follow her instructions properly. I’m a rule-follower, and it served me well then. I would be chasing a toddler soon, and it was important to me to be strong and flexible. I remember how I cried when I saw my calf the first time after my surgery, and realized how much it had atrophied in that short time. I wanted to be back to normal.

And now I mostly am. The painful twinges are the exception, not the rule. But those other times I lost my balance, the times I’m not as eager to talk about, they have left effects too: misconceptions in how I see the world, difficult memories, regrets, nightmares.  Lose your balance for a moment and you may feel it for years.

So I hold on to the banister, place my feet carefully. I take the stairs one at a time. And if I do miss a step or two and fall into the darkness, I don’t despair. I let grace catch me. I scramble to my feet again as soon as I can, get the help I need, keep going. When I lose my balance, I trust it isn’t gone forever, that I’ll get it back.

And one reason for that trust is that I lost my balance one night, years ago, and fell down the stairs and broke my leg.  But now I’m OK.


Our host this month is Doraine. Head on over to her blog to see what others have posted for today on the topic of balance.