Today I’m joining a talented group of writers at Five Minute Friday. This community connects each Friday in an online, unedited free-write based on a one-word prompt. My timer is set for 5 minutes. Let’s see where this week’s prompt–DISTANT–leads me.

I had no idea when I agreed to a revision of two previous spinal fusions and additional hardware placement lower in my lumbar spine what a long healing and recovery process it would be. As the journey began on March 6, 2019, I knew it was a much bigger surgery than others, but I had no way of knowing the collateral issues that would greet me after surgery. The finish line going in wasn’t clear.

It was obvious when I woke up to a right leg that I couldn’t feel below the knee that my goal line was in a far and distant land. It was not close at hand. My three-day stay in the hospital turned into six days followed by two weeks in a rehab center. Navigating my way into our home at the end of that two weeks, I sprained my right ankle extending the distance to the finish line by more time than I wanted to hear.

Physical therapy now appears to sit on a far and distant horizon. Each week, as I shared in my Wednesday post, it seems I come home with aches and pains I didn’t have when I left. The same thing happened this week so it is obviously standard operation (no pun intended) to push the patient into accepting the saying, “No pain, no gain.”

Yet, I know that the surgery itself was a success and all pre-operative pain is gone. This is a good thing, believe me. So, I’ve decided that my go-to verse, Jeremiah 29:11, still stands true as ever. I can go to distant places, including distant finish lines, as long as my God is with me. And He is!