Immobilized

Last Thursday, I went snowboarding and took a nasty fall. Ben said he saw it coming and tried to race down to catch me. I had gone too far too fast though and he couldn't reach me in time. As soon as I fell, I knew it was bad. When I finally made it the rest of the way down the run and to the lodge, I could barely sit down. But I didn't want the night to end there so I got back on the lift and we went down the run another time, and it felt great... until I got in the car. 

The whole car ride, I was shifting positions, grinding my teeth, and crying into Ben's shoulder. That night, I couldn't sleep because there was no comfortable way to lay down. The next day, I couldn't sit down normally and pain shot up my spine every time I moved. When I tried to sit down, I noticed Ben there beside me with his arms ready to help me down or catch me if I fell. If I looked into his eyes, I felt like he was hurting more from seeing my pain than I was feeling myself. 

This gave me an idea of what it might be like for God to watch us get hurt. He sees it before we fall and tries reaching out to us but we keep going. We have moved too far away and are headed to fast to stop. So we fall, and it hurts. Often, we question why God didn't stop us but we rarely pause to think that maybe He did all He could. If we are willfully going away from Him, He will let us but it means that when we start to fall, unless we go back to Him, we will get hurt. 

What impacted me the most though was how Ben took care of me after I fell and the hurt he felt as a result. It kills me to think that while I am asking God how He could let this happen, He is looking at me like that - eyes almost filled with tears because of the pain I must endure. He loves us and doesn't want us hurting. After we fall, He will do all He can to get us back to Him again but just like bruises don't vanish instantly, our wounds take time to heal. But the whole time, God is feeling just as much, if not more, pain than we are.