Being "Okay" With a Limp

For the first time in my life, I have had - just recently - someone from my immediate family to die. She was my oldest sister, and was very dear to my heart. In my memories of our childhood, she seems to have been sick all the time, battling asthma all of her life from a very young age. Somewhere along the way, she stuck to my heart and spirit, and I spent many days as a youth thinking to myself that I’d to anything for my sister just to have her to be able to breathe freely. She bonded with me, too. When I got ready to leave my mom and dad’s house for the last time to move to Houston, TX and begin my life as a husband and leader of my own home, she made her way there, and cried when I got into my car. During one of my last times of being around her, I remember her staring at me the entire time, and though it hurts to think about it now, my guess is that she was probably, then, saying “goodbye.”

From the moment that I got the call that she had gone home to be with the Lord, I wept, and even now, the tears haven’t stopped. People try to console me, and although I know they mean well, I find myself resenting their perspective. It’s almost like they’re telling me that the goal in all of this is to “get over” the pain and grief. Well, I haven’t and quite frankly, I don’t know if I want to. I’ve come to peace with my pain. I’m “okay” with the possibility that it’ll hurt for the rest of my life. …and “no,” this is not inconsistent with my faith.

Grief is part of what it is to be a human being. I remind myself that God calls me to be fully human – what He created me to be. I’m not failing God when I am what He created me to be.

When Jacob wrestled with a God at the placed that he later named, Peniel (Genesis 32), he left that place with a lasting limp. The limp didn’t make him less of a man of faith; in fact, he became more of God’s man now that he had a limp from having experienced the depth of his humanity in the presence of God. His limp was not “crippling.” It gave him a “leap” of faith.

So, I continue to grieve. I’ve wrestled with God over the passing of my sister. I have a lasting limp, and I’m okay with the limp. I know that my limp is lasting signage of unusual grace.

One more note… I certainly should be ready to “leap” with a “limp” because I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing the beauty of my sister’s remarkably inspiring life in spite of her life-long “limp.”

“You finished your course, sis.” Amen!