The Wall

Walls can be many things; A safeguard, a protection, an obstacle, a barrier, a confinement, a dwelling, a sanctuary, a prison, a demarkation, and more.

Where else do you run into a wall? Because for me, sometimes it feels like there’s a carpenter erecting walls around me without care. My “wall” while running marathons has always been at mile 19. And for that example it’s a wall of obstacle that I must either literally run through or stop.

Running a marathon requires different percentages on each person’s pie chart; The main 2 sections being physical and mental. Having one of these filled to 100% cannot, in and of itself, finish the race. And the wall is no respecter of persons in regards to whether it will impede the physical or the mental. In other words, you could be feeling strong physically when suddenly you begin to feel your body give way to weakness or pain. And vise versa, your inner monologue has been strong and motivating until that doubt creeps in persuasively to just call it quits. One can occur individually, but they can also work in tandem, screaming for you to stop in both the mind and body.

It feels like the entirety of my accident has been one gigantic, nearly unscalable wall. It was there in front of me, and seemed to be built up all around me, so actually a little more like a WELL. However, when you think of a wall, there is an unspoken assumption that it’s separating one place from another place. When I awoke living in a completely different land it was hard to comprehend that there was still another world and another place on the other side of what I couldn’t see through and couldn’t get over; I wasn’t even able to move a foot on command much less climb a wall. I couldn’t climb over, I couldn’t burrow underneath, I couldn’t walk around, so what’s a girl to do? And on which side do I belong? Ideally not the side of pain, anger, and confusion. Both of these places existed, this side of the wall and that side.

Looking back now, even while on the side of my pain, anger, and confusion, I had a team of people helping me with life whether there was a wall or not. And if it was a WELL I was stuck in, those same people were slowly drawing me out as you would hoist up a bucket filled with water to drink. For way too long it felt like I was stuck at mile 19, the wrong side of the wall, or at the bottom of a dark and cold well. Even now the memories that transport me back to hospitals and therapy rooms also take me right back to those places of confinement and restriction. I’m still not in a land of wide open space, but making daily progress helps me to discern what it was like then vs. what things are like now.

And just like when I’m in the middle of a marathon, I’ll often need to remind myself that the simple act of moving, and not stopping, makes all the difference.

Where is your wall? Do you even know? Because everyone will hit a wall, just like in one way or another everyone’s sun in their life will go down. The question is, how do you rebound? the Bible says that the Lord will never leave you or forsake you, even when you’re stuck behind a wall or lost in the dark. It also says many times that we must “seek” and “call on” Him when we’re in trouble.

It’s not about being stuck in resignation, stuck behind a wall, or at the bottom of a well, for we must be active in asking for help.