Since I was 11 or 12 or so, I’ve had knee issues. At a practice session during the Little League season, probably my last year to participate, a teammate took a swing and hit a long and deep ball into the practice field. I was sitting on the grass to his left, and he let the bat go as he swung. Of course, the bat flew through the air and smacked my right knee.
I don’t remember the outcome of that moment other than to say it hurt. Significantly.
Fast forward a few years after we bought a 1971 Plymouth Satellite station wagon with a rear-facing third-row seat. We had been to Kentucky for vacation, and on the way home, we were going by Look Out Mountain in Tennesee. “There is it!” said dad. From that back row, I twisted around to see, and B-L-A-M! My knee popped, and the leg wouldn’t stretch out again. I hopped all over the mountain on my good leg, even crossing a rope bridge, and wandered through Rock City Garden.
A visit to the doctor gives me a pair of crutches to use for several weeks. No other diagnosis. Wait it out.
Since those early years, my right knee will pop, and the leg would be locked in a bent position. I’ve had many falls to the ground. For the next 45 years, doctors would say, there’s nothing we can do now except major surgery, and you don’t want that.
Then, on vacation in 2017, swinging out of the car’s front seat, my knee popped, and there was a sharp pain. The meniscus tore, and now surgery could be done. Bing! Knee fixed! Right? Wrong. The bad meniscus was removed, but the doctor said I’d probably need a knee replacement in a few years.
It may be getting close to that future!
Walking With A Limp
I shared all of this only to say I have a limp that kept me from many activities. Especially those that required extreme exertion. In these modern times, I’m struggling with stairs, ladders, and uneven ground. It even seems like my foot doesn’t leave the ground at times without a struggle.
That’s my limp. What’s yours?
I wish this were a better thought-out subject, but none of us are perfect. Even if it’s in our own eyes, we all struggle with the strain of doing something we once did or would like to do – all because we have a limp.
Sometimes it’s as simple as getting up and moving every morning. Or taking a deep non-coughing breath. A “limp” can be how we think, present, share, or deal with an emotional struggle.
We all have had limps, are limping right now, or even will deal with limps in the future! Most of us survive and keep living forward. Some move at a slower and different pace. Others abandon the crowd and live solo lives. Our fears are real to us even though others sneer. Some are kept in our private world, and some we can do nothing about except live them out publicly.
Own Your Limp
Since we are all imperfect, and if we would train ourselves to accept another in their fault, could we not take ownership of our limp, share what’s happening, and live with it in an imperfect world?
With my knee not always in commission, I’ve had to learn how to do things differently. You are the same way with your limping in life. That’s life!
Imagine life 100 years ago. Franklin Roosevelt (FDR) lived it!
FDR was diagnosed with infantile paralysis, better known as polio, in 1921, at the age of 39.
Although dealing with this crippling disease was difficult,
many believe that his personal struggles helped shape FDR, both as a man and as a president.
[Source]
The Polio virus was a dreaded surprise in many lives. The paralysis was real, but it affected everyone differently. It affected the breathing ability of some, and the only way to survive was with an “iron lung,” also called a “tank respirator.”
FDR died nearly ten years before I was born, but even with his “limp,” he accomplished a great challenge of leading a nation out of the Depression era and nearly to the end of WWII. Imagine the challenge he faced on so many fronts!
His “limp,” though it was mainly kept hidden from the public for years, it did not prevent him from “Being” and “Doing.”
Call It A Renaming
I won’t bore you with all the details, but there was a twin who was secondborn. His father favored the older brother, but he was the apple of his mother’s eye. The competition between the brothers was a rocky time, even after life caused them to be apart. Why? The younger twin finally got into his father’s presence, deceived him in a moment of trickery, and was given the “blessing” as the receiver of wealth, privilege, and position. He edged the older brother out, and this created an inseparable rift.
In other words, Jacob lived up to his name. “The Heel Catcher,” or second best, not the first, but the last, always wanting to be the first.
Jacob fled and lived a long life on the other side of the country. There came a time of reunification, but on that last night, Jacob spent a restless night alone. Until. Sometime during the night, the bible describes a man wrestling with Jacob until the breaking of the day.
But something happened in the darkness. Jacob was holding his own, and the man caused Jacob’s hip to pop out of joint, thus limiting his fighting ability. But Jacob held on. He refused to give in, even when he was at a disadvantage.
Jacob, who had a bad rap and was called by a name that set the stage for trickery, is now facing all the memories of his past faults and failures.
Sometimes we want to think what we are dealing with in our darkness is either God, an angel, or even a spirit that might not be good for us.
But something positive happened this night.
Many tried to understand this scenario, even describing the man’s visage as Godly, but the moment is clear. As the new day dawns, Jacob is renamed Israel. The “heel catcher” is now Israel, “he will rule as God.”
Throughout the remainder of Genesis, he is often mentioned in the same thought with both names: Jacob and Israel.
The transition from your past to your future
is often a hand-in-glove experience.
You are who you were
While striving to become who you are promised to be.
Israel called that place of wrestling Peniel: “I have seen God face-to-face, and I came out alive.”
With an enduring presence of mind to wrestle in the dark and with the limiting factor of a limp, Israel has met with God and survived.
Between this story in Genesis 32 and the place where God affirms the name change and future blessing in Genesis 35, Jacob sets some changes to fulfill his role as Israel. As he makes an altar before God, God tells him:
And God said to him, “Your name is Jacob; your name shall not be called Jacob anymore,
but Israel shall be your name.” So He called his name Israel.
Also God said to him:
“I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply;
a nation and a company of nations shall proceed from you,
and kings shall come from your body.
The land which I gave Abraham and Isaac
I give to you; and to your descendants after you I give this land.”
(Genesis 35:10-12 NKJV)
Affirmation
We all struggle with something. A “limp.”
We can either be defined by it
or use it to define a better response to life.
My “limp” will be used for what it is.
A physical limiting factor of life
But it will not limit what I can do with my life.