When I crushed my leg in a freak car juggling accident, it changed my life a bit (as one might guess). Like everything else I do in my life, when I do something, I go all out in doing it. I couldn’t just break my right femur (the biggest bone in the body by the way) just once. No I had to go and break it in seven places. Fortunately, the doctor that put me back together was on the team that worked on Humpty Dumpty, so other than about a half an inch of misplaced parts and a strange ticking sound in my leg, one would hardly know that it was once in pieces. There could be all sorts of explanations for a two foot scar!

I bring this up in response to Mark’s temporary crisis of faith. Though my specific ailment may not have been the same, and the prognosis was also different, I can fully relate to the onset of the Dreaded D’s. The damage to my leg was severe enough that I could easily have just said, screw it, I will settle for a wheel chair, or a cane. I know many who might have done just that.

But to be honest, the thought never even crossed my mind.

It may be because I am stubborn. or maybe I value living too much. It could even be my contrary nature. Nothing better than a “You can’t do that!” to motivate me to DO THAT. Whatever the reason, I never even considered NOT trying to get the use of my leg back. But I won’t say it was easy. In the beginning, I could not even envision being able to lift my leg, let alone walk on it again. And pain became a daily norm. Even today it is rare that I have NO pain. It took me a couple of months before I was able to move out of the room I was confined to to take a shower. And when I finally could actually leave the house for physical therapy, that was the excitement of my day!

I certainly had a lot of time to face doubt and despair. Frankly if it were not for Scooby Doo and the Flintstones, I might have succumbed!

My therapy consisted of at least two hours a day, three days a week. For over a year. Most of that time I was on crutches  and even after the insurance company decided I could walk well enough now and did not need therapy anymore, I was on a cane for another 6 months. After the first 6 or 7 months of therapy, just when I though I was actually making some progress, my leg broke again. The bone was not mending as it needed to, and the rod in the leg (never meant as support but a guide for bone growth), simply snapped in half one day. I was doing nothing except standing … until I was no longer standing.

Talk about doubt and depression!

The second surgery took twice as long as the first, and the recovery was in some ways more grueling. The whole time I was in therapy, I tried my best. Even though some days it was HARD. I found out afterwards that many who were there a the time I was found my devotion and determination inspiring, even though to me I was just doing what needed to be done. My own personal inspiration was the man who had lost both his legs from the knee down, yet was there getting help to train for the marathon he was intent on running.

What is my point with this little bit of my history that no one actually asked for? Doubt is part of change. Fear is part of facing new things. Especially when that change; that newness, involves your very image of self. When the ground is taken out from beneath us, we need to learn to trust the land again, especially if we now need to walk on it differently. That is natural. I would me more concerned by the person who does NOT have doubts. The character of a person, though, is defined by how they deal with such doubt and fear. Do they buckle under it, or use it to shore up their resolve? I WILL do this just to prove to myself (and the world) that I CAN!

So my friend and partner, doubt away when you need to. Let the fear and pain wash through you, Let it pass, and clear the way for new resolve and strength. We will do it because we can. The only thing that can stop us is ourselves. I am sure I will also have my own periods of doubt and depression … already have for that matter. But there is one thing that those annoying Demons of D forgot to reckon with …

There is no keeping an Idiot down!