“Tell your story”
I have a scar on the left side of my head from the severe head injury I sustained back in 2005.
I healed miraculously but my fifteen year-old self wasn’t equipped to process what had just happened to me. Three months later, when it was time to go back to school to start my sophomore year, I was self conscious about my scar where I no longer had any hair. Considering I was incredibly fortunate to be alive, it sounds inconsequential - which it is, really. But I had recovered and it was time to face normal life.
It was time to be '“normal” again.
I walked down the halls sporting a new, long hairstyle to hide my scar. Everyone knew about the tragedy that I had just faced, but all I knew to do was what we’re all taught to do in our culture - act like I had it all together.
Try harder.
Succeed more.
Look perfect.
I would later learn that these traits, many of which were positive, would be one of the many things contributing to the debilitating pain that I was in.
1 in 5 people suffer from chronic pain — but you’d never know it because chronic pain is invisible.
It was incredibly difficult looking like a healthy teenager on the outside while feeling like my body was falling apart on the inside. For nine years, I sought out every doctor, physical therapist and treatment I could find. With all negative results and lack of answers, I persevered. And I continued to live a “normal” life the best I knew how. But time and again my body would betray me and a new health challenge would arise.
For thirteen years, each hairstylist I went to would help me cover up my “bald spot”, as it was referred to with only the closest of family and friends. I felt like I was always hiding this imperfection—but I was never wanting to hide. What I wanted was to be understood. But I worried that if I cut my hair short, if I revealed my scar, people would think I was trying to draw attention to myself.
In April 2018, I attended Catalyst West, a Christian leadership conference. That morning I would style my hair the way I always did, pushing my hair in multiple directions to try to cover up my scar. Wishing it wasn’t there. Wishing to look normal.
I was feeling discouraged that morning— then as I looked around the venue, I felt so insecure seeing that all the other attendees appeared to have it all together. And the high energy opener and comedic emcees really weren’t helping.
I realize now that the thing I was frustrated about was the very thing I had given into myself.
Feeling lonely and upset, I prayed that God would reveal himself to me in some way during this two-day conference. I really had my doubts at this point and honestly had a bad attitude. Then Jay and Katherine Wolf stepped onto the stage. Katherine survived a massive brain stem stroke in 2008. In the midst of their pain, Jay and Katherine wrote a book (hopeheals.com) and began encouraging others. In the midst of their pain, when they hadn’t figured everything out and when Katherine was still recovering, they began telling their story. They explained that this story wasn’t theirs to hold onto but God’s story to share. Then they shared something that really stuck with me:
“The most courageous thing we can do is take the hope we have been given and share it with others.”
Did I have the courage it took to tell my story?
Jay and Katherine’s talk helped me realize that I didn’t want to be normal.
Normal is boring. Different is courageous.
Different causes change.
Different is what we actually all are.
And there’s a reason that God made us all so different from each other. But when we try to fit into a box and be “normal,” we are denying ourselves and denying the story that God wants to tell through us.
The next time I got my hair cut, I told the hairstylist to cut it short. She commented that this was the shortest she had ever cut my hair, revealing my scar. I told her about my experience at Catalyst.
I had a story to tell and I didn’t want to hide it anymore.
It took thirteen years to accept and embrace that God gave me this scar as a reminder and a tool to tell my story; to tell His story. And God chose to reveal this to me at Catalyst, which just so happened to be held in a venue off Newport Coast Drive, the toll road exit for the prom I never made it to. My car accident happened at this same exit. We were almost there.
For the past thirteen years, I’ve lived less than 30 minutes away, but had never had a reason to turn onto this street. But God had a plan for when I would finally reach the destination I needed off Newport Coast Drive. God chose to bring me to Newport Coast Drive when I was ready.
Ready for Him to speak to me clearly, for the first time in my life.
“Tell your story” was a thought that entered my mind during the conference. When I immediately repeated it back to myself, “Tell my story”, is when I realized that those words had just been spoken to me. It wasn’t my words or my voice but God’s.
It was in this moment that I decided it was time to let go of the “perfect” image that I tried so long to obtain. God doesn’t use perfect people and I’m ready to be used by God to share with others how I’ve learned to struggle through and embrace my imperfect life, in hopes that it will help others.
Fifteen years ago, I survived a fatal car accident with a severe head injury and fractured neck. Since then, I suffered from chronic pain, grand mal seizures, anxiety, fatigue—the list goes on.
I had five surgeries within five years.
As a dad to two toddler girls, I wouldn’t wish any of this on them. But time and again my Heavenly Father has used these lessons to mold me and shape me. I’m incredibly thankful for the life I have, with the struggles, and wouldn’t trade my experiences for anything.
I can’t hold it in anymore - these lessons that I’ve learned and the physical and emotional healing I’ve experienced. I pray that through my writing, others find the same freedom and physical healing I’ve found along my journey.
One of the many lessons that my journey taught me is that normal means having a unique story, one that involves both joy and suffering.
We all have an imperfect story.
This is mine.
