My Journey with Fear, Injury, and Dyslexia
My Journey with Fear, Injury, and Dyslexia
By an 8th grader
My life verse has always been Joshua 1:9, "be strong and courageous, do not be afraid, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go." However, I soon realized that I was not really claiming or living this verse.
In the beginning of seventh grade, I injured my foot when doing a back handspring, back flip thing – called a layout, on the balance beam. I ended up in a boot for four weeks. Around that same time, two of my favorite coaches stopped coaching our team, and I was very upset because they had also been my mental coaches, helping me get many gymnastics skills.
When I finally got out of the boot, I had to work on a few old skills because I had not done them since I was injured. I thought everything would come back just fine. However, while I was working on getting my old gymnastics skills back, I realized that I was nervous--really nervous. I was scared to even do a double back handspring on the high beam, a skill that had once been easy. Maybe, I thought, I was just having an off day.
I kept working on that skill, and I realized that it I had real fear on this skill and did not want to do it, but I still refused to ask help from my coaches, or God.
Not asking anyone for help started to show through in all four events. On vault, I refused to do my round off back handspring to the vault which continued into a back tuck off the vault, on the uneven bars I would not do my release from the high bar to the low. On floor, I would second guess myself on a lot of the tumbling I did, and on balance beam, I was lucky if I would do four back handspring, back handsprings a month. I developed a crippling fear on skills that I had been doing for years; I did have the courage to do them.
As eighth grade approached, my fear was worsened. I was second guessing every skill. I sat down with my coaches, and we agreed that I should take a break from gymnastics because of all the stress I was putting on myself.
During this break, I had a lot of time to think about my gymnastics life over the past two years. I asked God, is this really the plan You wanted for me? I have been doing gymnastics since I was three years old, and now you just want me to throw it all away because of some fear that I can not get over? At that point, I was very frustrated with myself and God.
Also, at the same time I was going through fear and questioning the sport that I love, I found out that I was dyslexic. I felt like my world was crumbling because school was becoming harder and harder, and now I knew why. When I found that out that I was dyslexic, I went to God and asked Him why. Why was he putting me through these hard times, and what was I going to learn through being dyslexic? That I was stupid? Because that is what I thought that I was because I was dyslexic.
Then, one day in the car I was thinking, there is a reason why God is putting me through this, and I might not know what it is, but He has a plan. It is a good plan.
I feel like a lot us have gone or are going through these moments where we do not know why God is putting us through these very hard times, but we just have to realize that He is going to put us through these hard times to teach us a lesson.
For me, one of the lessons that God was trying to teach me was to trust in Him, and relay on Him alone to get through the fear.
Often, when I was not able to do a skill, I felt like I disappointed my coaches. Then I thought, if I was going to quit gymnastics over this fear, I would disappoint my coaches, my parents, but most of all myself. Even though my parents and coaches told me many times that I was not disappointing them, still in the back of my mind, I always thought I was.
Now I realize instead of getting upset, I should have asked God for help all along the way, and the outcome would have been much better for me.
I feel like most of us put ourselves under this pressure of disappointing people...if we do something wrong, it could somehow ruin out friendships, grades, sports, or even life. However, those bad thoughts are just the devil trying to get in our heads.
All we need to do is ask God to help us, and He will put us in the right direction and help us make the right decisions that will lead us on the right path. But some of you may say that I have already made the wrong decision that I can’t turn back from. However, as James 1:5 says, “if any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.”
Also, I now know that God used my dyslexia to teach me creative ways to continue to get good grades for His glory and to persevere.
At the same time all this was happening, some of my friendships starts to crumble; I still did not know who I was in Christ.
By letting some of my friendships break, God has taught me that friends will come and go, but He will never leave us, and no power of the devil will ever made God leave. He has also taught me that He gives us friends when we need them for a circumstance which we need them for, and when we might not need them anymore, God may take them away.
In Psalm 18:2, it says, "The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold."
What God has been trying to teach me throughout these two years is that I need to rely on God. I learned that I cannot fix these hard times on my own.
With gymnastics I tried to fix my fear all one my own, and did not ask God to help me through it, and I result of that I was afraid to do almost all my skills.
When I found out I was dyslexic, I did not ask God to help me through it, and it made me second guess myself, and I thought it meant that I was stupid
Also, I did not ask God for help with my friendships, and I ended up sitting alone at the lunch table.
Even when I thought all was lost, I had fallen down a mountain that was impossible to get back up from, God came through for me. He helped me find something great in the mist of bad; He is helping me climb up the mountain that I could not have climbed on my own.
He helped me find who I am in him. He took something bad and made it good, and He was able to help me get off the bad path that I had been taking for the past two years and get on the right one.
If you are telling yourself, "I can’t turn back," or "I have been on that bad path for too long to turn around," or you are saying that" God loves everyone, but He would love that person more because he or she has been better than I have been," you are wrong. Romans 5:8 teaches us that "God demonstrates His own love for us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
This means that no matter what sins we have committed, no matter what things we have done, Jesus loves us all equally, and he paid the price of death on the cross, so that we would not have to, and one day we could be with him in heaven. Now that is the most love that we could ever receive!
In middle school, I feel like so many people try to be someone they are not to please another person or a group of friends. However, you do not have to be the one that everyone wants to be friends with or to be the first one picked, but you can be the undiscovered one that shines brightly for Gods glory. If you make the right choices and be who God made you to be, God will reward you and direct you towards the right group of friends.
Ask yourself...
- Are putting yourself under the thought that you disappointing others?
- Are you trying to do everything by yourself and not relying on God to help you?
- Are you thinking that you have been going down a path which you cannot turn back from?
- Are you trying to be someone you are not to please another person?
If you are thinking any of these thoughts, I want you to throw them away because God is there with open arms waiting for you to run into them. God will be there every step of the way, through anything you may be going through just like He has been for me,
I just had to let Him… You just have to let Him.
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