It’s Not the Fall That’ll Kill You . . .

It’s not the fall that’ll kill you . . .

It’s not really the landing either.

What will kill you, or drive you batty, or rob you of joy, or complicate your recovery is constantly replaying that last step, the single decision, the wrong choice, or the split-second the bad thing happened and sent you off the edge in the first place. That’s the death sentence.

I should know.

When my son was fourteen, he woke me early in the morning after he’d been battling flu all night. As I dressed, he availed himself of the upstairs bathroom. Suddenly, I heard a thud. By the time I reached the hallway, he met with an odd look on his face. “I think I hurt myself,” he said. Then he turned and I realized he’d fallen against our old iron radiator and suffered 2^nd and 3^rd degree burns on his back. He recovered but for weeks, I replayed that thud, as if I could get back to that moment in time and change the events.

I’m experiencing it again now. This past Saturday, I attempted to reach an outlet I could just see over the top of several large slabs of sheet rock my husband had leaning in the hallway. I thought I could nudge it just enough to reach the plug but instead, over 1000 pounds of drywall fell in my direction, landing on me, trapping me in the hall, and smashing my foot. I’ll live (just one broken metatarsal and lots of soft tissue trauma) despite the drama of the ensuing rescue. Still, ever since the accident, I keep reliving that moment, as if I could bridge the time/space continuum and rewrite the choice to nudge, sparing myself the entire affair.

I’ve done that before. Obsessed over other choices – sinful decisions, poor judgment, missed opportunities – and driven myself over the cliff of useless mental games more times than I want to admit. But this week, I discovered a cure.

You see, I believe if it was useful for us to go backwards in time, God would work that out for us. He is outside of time. He can travel at will. If redoing our choices was the answer, He’d arrange that. Instead, He promises that all things will work together for good for those who love the Lord. Instead of redoing our choices, He redeems them. “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28

So this week, I’ve made a conscious decision to believe God, to take Him at His Word. The next time following that decision that my mind wandered back to the hallway and my hand reaching for the outlet, I imagined the cross of Christ between me and the pile of sheet rock. I reminded myself that Christ died for me, that I laid everything at the cross, and that my life belongs to Him. He has the last Word over all my choices.

The cross loomed larger in my mind than my foolish choice and reminded me and Satan that God will work, even this, together for good. When I did that, I imagined the living vine that is Jesus covering the sheet rock, the broken glass, my broken foot, my skinned elbow, my lumpy noggin, and instead of feeling foolish and stressed, I felt excited to see what God will do.

My mind still keeps dragging me back to the moment but the cross and the vine are there, too, and I now experience freedom from condemnation. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1

God’s gift of imagination is too often used for evil rather than good. An imagination informed by God’s Word can be a healing thing. I’m excited now to apply this method of self-control over my thoughts by choosing to believe God’s Word to other times when Satan tries to drag me into the past and beat me up over things I can’t change.

Jesus owns my life now. Jesus has the last word on every choice. The living vine will have the last word on my swollen foot, the cast/boot, the crutches, and the days I lost in a haze of ice packs and pain killers. It won’t be the last bad decision I make or the last unfortunate thing that happens to me, but as I grow stronger in Christ, I pray it’s the last time I become a slave to the notion that the only way to overcome is to relive the past.

In Christ, I can move forward in time and still be an overcomer. Forward, that’s where the adventure lies.

Remember, it’s not the fall that will kill you . . . it’s missing the freedom found in Jesus Christ.

It's Not the Fall That Will Kill You https://t.co/DwaBhdJhZq Find out what will . . . #BadDecisions #amwriting #Redemption

— Lori Roeleveld (@lorisroeleveld) May 20, 2016