Life After the Fall…
It’s been a year. 365 days feels like THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-FIVE DAYS…8765.82 HOURS (how is .82 hours even possible?), 525,949.2 MINUTES (“.2” seems excessive, but you get the point)! Truthfully, there were many times when it seemed I could feel each of those minutes ticking by. The year didn’t “fly by.” It was more like the endless reprise of the song that should’ve just stuck with a single chorus…maybe just a jingle. It’s very telling when the hubs has corrected my references to “last year…or maybe the year before,” with a quick, “Eva. That was more than 2 years ago.” Super. Pretty ironic that I have almost no recollection of the past 525,949.2 minutes, yet I distinctly remember each never-ending moment of those 365 days that seemed to last forever. Might need a neurologist to chime in on how that works…on that note, anybody think the average neuro is doing a little light reading of the The Carr Ride over his morning coffee??
We best move on.
One of my super supportive man-children once told me that I can’t use the title phrase, “After the Fall,” with Christian-folk because they’ll think I’m talking about THE fall…of mankind…you know the one…lots of beauty, lots of skin, lots of forbidden food, lots of blame to go around…yep, that’s the one. Except I’m now referring to the Fall of Doom, as I so affectionately call my fall, which did, in fact, happen 1 year past.
Side note: never listen to the advice of your children. I’m probably even gonna get some merch made. Big font title with little font on “not THE fall” or something like that…then little stick figure gal with 2 broken legs and all the contraptions. It’ll sell like hot cakes, I’m telling you! Speaking of merch…also gotta do some with my ever-popular, “Don’t call the elders.” whenever I’m about to say something a little sassy or uber transparent. Obviously…I need to start a little side hustle t-shirt biz for sarcastic Christians. Who’s in?!
OK…so life after the fall…what’s been going on, how’s the recovery, what’ve I been up to, what’s next…all the things. There are so many things to update and cover, but I think I’ll simply start with the main thing that really kept me from updating throughout the last year. Maybe that’s why I opened this post with some stunning wit and charming humor…don’t stop reading please…she’s deflecting again. But the reality is…I don’t love sharing this part, even though I’m confident this is what I should share…hence the blabbering above.
Here’s the punch line: the Eva that fell down the stairs and broke both her legs (1 bones on the left and 3 bones on the right) is NOT the same Eva that spent the 8,765.82 hours in recovery. While desperately trying to find some hope and encouragement in those initial days AFTER THE FALL, the Eva of January 2025 landed on the positive things that I could grab hold of…I would have all KINDS of time to read (Bible, Bible studies, historical fiction, Christian growth, etc), write (both in the blog world AND especially the book I’ve been writing on Confessions of a Grieving Christian), send cards to people for special occasions and just because I was thinking of them, and make videos for social media to encourage others who might also be struggling.
Doesn’t that all sound so fulfilling and intentional and encourageing? Well that was at least my thought-process for sure…for the first week or so…probably less.
And then reality set in. The depth and scope of my situation burst my hot air balloon with a resounding pop, causing me to plummet to the ground. Because the Eva that went through the past 365 days was left to process all the things like…intense and unimaginable pain, grieving the loss of dreams and plans and relationships, loneliness on steroids (even when I was often surrounded by so many loving friends and family!), the lackluster healing, the infinite setbacks, the turtle-like progress, and the never-ending surgeries (#4 is still TBA, but I’m trying to delay with the help of steroid injections)!
THAT Eva started and stopped multiple blog posts because what was there to say and who even would care to listen? THAT Eva couldn’t read more than a couple lines before the page went blurry. THAT Eva began to withdrawal into herself because she already felt “too much” for everyone around her. THAT Eva couldn’t get away from the lies of the Enemy that she had nothing to offer. THAT Eva wept in silence and just kept begging the Lord for some measure of comfort and relief and hope.
In reality, there were so many moments and glimpses of hope and encouragement…maybe not in each of those many minutes…but definitely on each of those many days. The trouble was (and let’s be honest…often still IS) that my vision was so clouded by my circumstances that I couldn’t see past the fog. I hope to share some of those glimmers of hope and joy over the course of this NEXT 365 days, but I don’t want you to miss the point of all this even now. Those “God-moments” were there all along…through His people, through my family and friends, through precious notes and gifts sent from all over the country, through the treasured gatherings of my 2 Bible studies, through all the prayers, and the gift of simple presence offered by so so many.
I don’t want to ever forget how much I experienced the hands and feet of Jesus in 2025, but I’m sure I will have to fight to remember. After all, I’m prone to wander. Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. I pray He will seal my heart for his glorious Kingdom and my eternal good. And I pray that these words I’ve shared, and the brokenness in which I’ve shared them, will not be wasted. If you’re feeling any type of brokenness and weariness, come sit with me. The Lord is near to the broken-hearted. He promised. He can be near to you too…and he won’t ever forsake us. He promised that too.
Then we can dive in even deeper…together. After all…we’ll have matching merch!