As frequently happens, life has thrown a perfect scenario for learning into my path and I figured I’d share what I’ve been learning.
Last Friday afternoon I was taking a shower in my recently remodeled bathroom. (Now before you get jealous of my new bathroom, let me tell you it was remodeled because my bathroom was filled with water and toxic mold. Yay.) Anyway, my brand new shower door had just broken one of the wheels used to make it move on the track the day before. (Can you tell they did a great job?!) I hadn’t had a chance to request management fix it. While I was showering, the door came completely off the track and wouldn’t close. I picked up the door to move the one working wheel back onto the track and for no apparent reason, the entire glass door shattered in my hands. I was stuck standing in the middle of the biggest pile of broken glass I’ve ever seen, with shampoo in my hair, a facial masque now covered in bits of glass, and blood flowing from my hands and feet.
This is not how I planned my shower to go.
Has life ever done this to you?
It’s just an ordinary Friday afternoon, you’re going about your ordinary tasks when all of a sudden life seems to have shattered at your feet.
I’ve never had a glass door shatter on me before, but I’ve definitely had life shatter on an ordinary day.
What was incredible to me on Friday was the calmness that took over my brain as I began to puzzle my way through this freakish predicament. I think these steps apply to many life-shattering situations.
Step Out of the Disaster
My precious girls were home with me when this happened and were incredible helpers. They put on their shoes and walked my shoes into where I was stranded in the pool of broken glass. I’m not quite sure how I would have gotten out of that shower without their help. I’d have figured something out, but I was able to get out much more quickly with their help.
Quickly stepping out of the shower was quite important because I was bleeding from my hands and feet! Gross! Knowing that I’ve fainted several times when blood is involved, I really wanted to get into an environment that was softer, just in case I couldn’t stay upright!
Sometimes our shattered doors are emotional traumas or mental attacks. We need to remove ourselves as quickly as possible from the circumstances that caused us harm. A bad work environment or abusive relationship can be places we have to leave. Maybe for the day or maybe permanently. We won’t know until we get ourselves away from the source of the accident.
Stop the Bleeding
Once I’d managed to get out of the shower, I was able to begin to really assess how serious my injuries were. By the grace of God, none of my cuts were serious enough to require stitches or a trip to the ER. I worked together with my girls to clean each cut and bandage it as needed.
This step can be trickier when your injury is mental or emotional. The bleeding is harder to see. It’s still there, but we don’t always know what to look for. If you are dealing with these internal traumas, you probably need to take the time to rest. You need to give yourself grace if life seems too hard to deal with. Call on family or friends to help you assess where the injuries are and to help you bandage them up.
This could take a while. Have patience.
Clean Up the Mess
A friend was coming to our house, before all of the exploding glass craziness, and arrived just as we were finishing up bandaging my wounds. She immediately started helping. She helped me decide if I needed stitches on one of my cuts and then became my co-laborer in figuring out how to clean up the epic mess in my bathroom. We talked through some options until I finally remembered that we own a shop vac that would be perfect for cleaning the glass up.
She helped me get the massive vacuum out of our storage in our parking lot and bring it up two flights of stairs. Then she decided she would do the cleaning because I kept looking like I was going to pass out.
She’s awesome!
Do you have people who can help you when life wrecks normal for you? In an age of social media friends, do you have the real kind that would drop whatever they are doing and come help you?
We need real friends. Friends whose arms can hug us in the midst of tragedy. Friends who can watch our kids when we need to stay with a loved one in the hospital. Friends who will bring us soup when we are sick.
Or clean up a giant pile of broken glass.
Do you have those kinds of friends?
I hope so. If not, here’s how you get them: you be that kind of friend to others when they need you. You make time to hang out and talk with each other about all parts of life. This particular friend and I have spent hours and hours of time together. Sharing life, the good and the bad. We’ve made ourselves available to each other in all kinds of different ways.
We need these kinds of friends. We need to BE this kind of friend, too.
Praise the Lord you are Alive!
Once the complete shock of the situation had worn off, I began to realize how incredibly fortunate I was to have had something so dangerous happen, yet have sustained so little injury. I believe God protected me.
So I began to praise Him and thank Him! Thank you, Lord, that you protected me! Thank you for my life and breath! Thank you for keeping almost all my blood on the inside, where it belongs!!
Sometimes we can take things for granted in this incredible life. I believe one of the ways that God works bad events out for our good is the increased gratitude we can choose to experience. We have so much to be grateful for. God is so good!! Praise Him today for waking you up and keeping you safe. Praise Him for your family and friends. Praise Him for choosing to pursue you day after day.
He loves you!! I hope you feel His love this day!
