Repair

I’m notorious for needing consistent repairs each year I get my car inspected in April. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s just one of those necessary things that needs to happen in our lives. Repair.

A few years back, a car repair would have been the end of the world. This last April, when it came time for me to put money down on the cost of the repair, I told them they could do whatever they needed to do in order to get the car to pass, because I had prepared beforehand, and I was finally ready to get my car fixed up.

It wasn’t until I drove my car off the lot that I realized how bad it had been getting. My rotors and breaks had some serious work done on them. It finally became easier to onramp the highway and also slow down. I could turn corners normally and brake more easily again. I realized this as I was driving off the lot in April and it had me thinking about the number of ways in which I often fail to go and get surgery on my heart when it needs fixing.

How easy it is for me to go around saying “i’m in a weird mood today” or “I’m tired” without stopping to think about the real reasons why I’ve been triggered or why I’m tired. There is always a cause and an effect.

What happens on the outside is a direct effect of what’s happening on the inside. It might be what you choose to put in your body, what you choose to watch, read, or listen to, or it might be as simple as how you are filling your soul with the true rest it needs in order to show up in a capacity that means something more in your everyday context. These are questions I often ask myself: Have I drank my water today? Have I written something I care about today? Have I spent time in the word today? Have I read a few pages today? Have I vocalized the way I feel lately?

I recently had to take a step back and talk with someone about the way I had been feeling about something at work. For the better part of a month, this situation had been eating at me, and as a result, my inability to talk or share how I had been feeling about the given situation made it harder for me to bring my best foot forward. I thought keeping to myself would help me, but it only hindered my ability to bring myself and my heart to the conversation at the table.

In the same way it can take a little while to go and get a routine check on our car done, we can also carry things around like dead weight without even knowing it until enough people ask are you doing okay? and the courage to say what you mean comes to the surface and brought to the light.

I’ve been thinking recently that the process of healing and repair are not linear. It takes one step and choice to go and get a routine check. Things get resolved. It’s in the act of speaking up and bringing to light that which is broken that we are able to find mending and healing. This happens when we use our voices and get courageous as lions. But it starts with the act of realizing we really need the mending.

We must not wait on seeking out that repair or we could miss out on the freedom that comes when we choose it. The beauty of freedom is that it’s available to everyone who steps out and acknowledges it. In the same way I had to go and acknowledge that I needed repairs on my car done, there will always be a deeper level of repair that needs to get done with the surgery of my heart.

If I am willing, He will do the repair. If we are willing, He will take His hands and mold us into someone and something so much greater than before. And it’s worth it.