I absolutely love Malaysia. It has been my favorite place to visit on the race so far. The people are kind, it’s very diverse culturally, there are mountains everywhere, and it has a very chill vibe. I’m a fan of the place. What’s weird is how much I love this place yet I spent half of the month stuck in an apartment. I am absolutely in love with the parts of Malaysia I’ve experienced but let me tell you about the other half of my month too. Within a week I had really sharp pains in my back and difficulty walking. After an X-ray, MRI, and hundreds of dollars later turns out I have a slipped disc in my lower spine and my nerves were all kinds of angry with me.
How did I manage to do this you might ask? By walking. Literally walking from point A to point B. I wish I had a cool story like cliff jumping or skydiving but I was just trying to buy groceries. I also fell down stairs last month which may have been the start of this problem. I swear I’m not usually this accident prone! I keep asking is this what happens when you’re almost 30 because this is ridiculous!?
I’m a natural fighter in spirit and in case you’re wondering my zodiac sign is a Taurus so I’m a little stubborn. Throughout the other months I just powered through illness and injury saying “oh it’ll be fine” but this month I was not fine. The first two days with my back issues I could not walk on my own. I mean think hunched over and could barely shuffle my feet without being in insane pain; which means I could barely do anything for myself. My teammates had to help me walk, cook, and carry my bags on travel days. Shout out to team Radiance because they are the real MVP’s. It was pretty awful. I felt like a burden and I certainly didn’t want that. Over the past few weeks I have gotten stronger. I can walk on my own again and cook my own food with the help of prayer, rest, and pain meds.
What was hard was not only the inability to do things for myself but hearing about all of the things I was missing out on. FOMO is real y’all. My team got to work with an orphanage, teach children who are refugees, and explore the cities we were living in. That sounds way more fun than sitting on a couch with limited mobility. In addition to that, the doctor told me I would not be able to do anything “extreme” even after recovery due to risk of reinjuring my back. Needless to say I did not take that well because I want to do all the things-all the time.
I wrestled with a lot this month but in the wrestling I am learning a lot through this process.
1) I’m learning how to accept love freely, meaning I don’t owe anyone anything for helping me when I can’t help myself. People who genuinely care about and love me want to help me without an expectation in return.
2) I’m learning a new level of how to trust God in the process aka “in the middle” of the hard stuff. If things don’t work out how you hoped or in the timing you thought it would is God enough to fill the void? Is He enough to sustain you? Enough to fight your battles?
3) I was reminded (and tell myself daily) that I was right where God had assigned me. It may not make sense to me but it’s where I’m supposed to be.
4) I’m learning how to value my body. I’m one to say “I’m better” and “I can do x, y and z” (again I’m stubborn), but the question I keep coming back to is “should I”? Should I waddle over there to get my charger or ask the person standing right next to it? I’ve had to learn to ask for things just so I can make sure long term I’m fully healed and getting better. Just because I can doesn’t always mean I necessarily should.
With all that said, ministry for me looked different than my team. Even though I wanted to work with the kiddos, this month I got to pray for my team like never before as they went out to serve the community, I got to host an IF:table, I got to share what God has been teaching me “in the middle”, I got to have an awesome conversation with our Airbnb host, and talk to lots of taxi drivers about their culture and beliefs (upside to going to the hospital 3 times in a week).
I have been able to do a few fun things while in Malaysia as I get better: Batu Caves which is a 400million year old limestone cave that holds an 100 year old Hindu Temple, The Petronas Twin Towers which are the tallest twin towers in the world, Monkey Beach, and the Perdana Botanical Gardens which are stunning. I highly recommend all of them! Though my month looked nothing like I had hoped it would I’m learning to trust God right where he puts me.
