Being Still.

Perhaps, it really is true when they say God knows the deepest cries of our hearts, and knows us better than we even know ourselves. Perhaps, it is His great love for us that allows Him to orchestrate events for our good, even when they seem the least likely to be so.

I should have been really upset. Instead, I felt free. Like a bird out of its cage, I felt so free.

And surprised, too. My reaction of sadness mixed with much relief and gladness surprised me.

"No biking or running for the next 6 weeks. You may take up to 3 months to recover. You've torn your hamstring tendon, and could possibly have a pelvic stress fracture."

"3 months? You're joking. I exercise 5 to 6 days a week."

"Well, it could be sooner but yeah, it takes that long."

I could feel the pressure building up behind my eyes, but it came mainly because I knew I would miss my friends whom I train with. Yet, a part of me was strangely... relieved. It was as if I was relieved that God had intervened, because He knew better than I did that I was tired, that I was going too long and too far, that my spirit longed for a fresh change and needed to enter a new season. He knows best what's good for us, and where we ought to be at.

This, is a season of rest.

Relief, came as a strange feeling.

For once, I'm relieved that life no longer revolves around 2 to 3 runs, 2 swims and 1 bike session a week. I'm relieved that time has suddenly opened itself up, and I have the freedom, the time and the space (oh, the lovely, expanding, cystalline space that suddenly unfolds endlessly, seamlessly) to stop, to meet people, to simply -be-, without being enslaved to a routine of adrenaline or to expectation. For once, I'm relieved to be a semi-colon, and not a series of exclamation marks. I don't have to train, don't have to think about the next race, don't have to wonder why I'm so tired.

It's funny how we put expectations on ourselves that we were never required, at least in God's eyes, to fulfill.

Interruptions, can be beautiful things.

After manouvreing both my legs in the strangest and most awkward of positions, and finding all ways and means to find the point which hurt the most, The Big Man finally said, "It isn't the gracilis you tore. It's the adductor magnus tendon."

I learnt, that no matter how terrible our mistakes may be, God's grace and love to us, will always be restored- fully. It brought me great relief, strangely, to know that my grace-lis muscle was intact, even though the adductor magnus is a larger one.

This injury helped me see where my time had gone all this while, how the time spent in the water and on the road can also be spent elsewhere, on art, on thinking, and people and good books. How I miss painting and cooking and being... Still. This injury helped me see how incredibly liberating it is to know you can let go, how deeply empowering it is to one's faith to know that one is not a slave to anything. It is helped me to trust God, and to see how affliction, is truly a beautiful thing.

There was a season to suffer on the road while training, and now there is a season to suffer off it, while being still.

I decided to see a sports doctor when I finally decided that it isn't normal for one to be in a perpetual state of pain all day, even while resting and walking. I awoke in the middle of the night because of pain, and so decided today, that I needed to get help.

I realised, that interupptions, afflictions and setbacks are opportunities to learn from mistakes, to learn about oneself, and about life. I realised, that pain holds our feet long enough for us to stop striving, and to start being.

It's funny how I can be in so much in pain and yet feel so.... relieved. Thankful. At peace with God.

Yet, the pain is real. Tears do come. When it gets worse at night while I'm by myself, when I can't chase a bus, miss my training buddies or when I wonder if I might ever do a triathlon again, the tears do come.

But I remind myself, that God is in control, that even in affliction, He has a purpose. Crazy?

Maybe.

I am excited about the new season I am entering, one of rest, of processing what sports and training mean to me, what they mean to God and the poor, of exploring new things to do with my time- like reading and oil painting and finally, maybe the fourth book that I've been wanting to write...

From my illness, God brought me to a place where I could be healthy through sports. Now, I am entering a place where I can find security even without it. Even while being... Still.

That, too, is a breakthrough.

And so, I can rejoice and give thanks, even in stillness, even in a state of perpetual pain.

Perhaps, that too, is victory.

"... It is good for me that I have been afflicted,

That I may learn Your statutes...

... I know, O God, that Your judgements are right,

And that in faithfulness You have afflicted me.

Let, I pray, Your merciful kindness be for my comfort..."

- Psalm 119:70-76

"I will be still and know You are God."

-Still