Captain America

Yesterday evening Alex saw me wheeling down the hallway with Pinterest open on my iPad. Naturally, she stopped me and politely demanded to know who the attractive man on the iPad was. I laughed and told her it was Captain America, a character from a popular movie. She said she was going to watch that movie this weekend so she could see more of This man. While I'm a bigger Joss Whedon fan than Avengers, I really do enjoy the character of Captain America. There's a scene early in the first movie where Rogers is still that sickly looking dude who desperately wants to serve his country and do what's right. The doctor is convinced he's the one to inject with super strength, but the commanding officer is unconvinced. The two men then watch a group of soldiers respond to a fake grenade tossed in their midst. Everyone scatters except soon to be Captain America who is curled on top of the grenade in an attempt to save his comrades.

Don't you wish you would respond that selflessly?

I've had a lot of people tell me something similar. "I really hope I would have responded like you." I didn't really know what to make of those statements for a long time. What I've come to realize is no one knows how they will respond to any crisis, but you can prepare yourself in some ways. I can look back and see how my life led up to my response. If this accident occurred five years ago, I don't know how I would have responded either. I hope with dignity and grace.

What I do know is that I'd already been prepped to step out of the way in situations over my head. I had twenty-five years of learning that involved a fair share of selfishness and mistakes to make me the person I am today. On the emergency room phone call when I asked my dad first to pray that God would be glorified and second that I might walk again it wasn't because I'm a straight up awesome person. It was because I have had a series of events in my life shaping me into a person who has glimpses of perspectives outside of my life. Your life has shaped you to face completely different challenges. Steve Rogers was shaped by life to be the kind of gentleman who throws himself on grenades to save other people's lives. I was shaped to respond well to two broken vertebrae.

I still make decisions that form me for whatever comes next in my life. They continue to shape me into, I hope, someone more like Jesus.

Strangely, my situation and subsequent response has garnered me a lot of attention. I have been so blessed by the number of strangers who have reached out to me with messages and mail to let me know they care about me. Even more humbling are the cards and conversations from friends or just acquaintances who take the time to articulate how my response has been personally encouraging to them. However, I still really resist the idea of being put on a pedestal because I don't belong at a higher level than any other person on earth.

Ordinary person that I am, I've found myself in the extraordinary position of having two pastors from California visiting their missionaries here ask to visit and pray over me. Who am I to receive such attention? No one. The visits, the cards, the messages aren't about me but rather the God at work within me.

As Jo aptly identified last week, my skill set largely is made up of my ridiculously high pain tolerance and my mad Candy Crush abilities; I'm not a super hero. I've got some pretty sweet connections though, and I'd just like to make it clear to you that I don't take a single step out of my own strength. I never have, but I'm all the more aware of it now. The Great Healer is my strength, and I'm so grateful to be safe in his arms. How cool we can celebrate that together!

Part of the safety God gives me is the arms of the nurses who walked me to lunch and dinner yesterday. I slowly made my way from my room to the table with a nurse holding on to a belt around my torso. The nurses are now trained to catch me if I stumble, but as my visitors yesterday evening saw, the nurse walking me to dinner is half my size. Alex wouldn't give her approval to let me walk with the nurses unless she was confident I wasn't going to fall. She has seen my muscles work and my body slowly regain confidence in my legs. She knows I'm not a super hero, but I can't wait to hear her response to Captain America's super powers which we all know are chivalry and good looks.