I never wanted to stop running.
My life was a blur of deadlines, achievements, and constant motion.
Success meant speed, or so I thought.
Then came the injury that brought everything to a halt.
At first, I only saw what was taken - my momentum, my plans, my control.
God works in the stillness when we can no longer work in our strength.
I remember staring at the ceiling.
The world kept spinning while I was stuck in place.
Hours stretched into days, and days into weeks.
Something strange happens when you can no longer do what defined you.
You start to see what was always there but never noticed.
"It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees." (Psalm 119:71)
Those words felt like a personal message as I lay there.
Good? How could this pain possibly be good?
Yet in the stillness, I began to notice things I'd rushed past before.
Grace isn't earned but freely given even when we produce nothing.
I had been measuring my worth by what I accomplished each day.
God measures worth by who we are as His children.
My identity was never meant to be built on what I could do.
The injury stripped away the doing and left me with just being.
In that being, I found God was enough.
Gratitude grows in unexpected places, where our plans have been changed.
I started keeping a list of small goodnesses I noticed each day.
Not big achievements, just tiny glimpses of grace I'd missed before.
We often seek God in the extraordinary but miss Him in the ordinary.
My fast-paced life had blinded me to countless everyday mercies.
I was looking for God in my accomplishments rather than in my need.
Sometimes God allows a breaking to create space for a blessing.
He wasn't punishing me with pain but positioning me for perspective.
Weakness becomes a window when we surrender our strength.
I began to pray differently, with open hands instead of clenched fists.
"Thank you" replaced "why me" as my daily prayer.
I found myself noticing goodness in places I'd never looked before.
The injury that slowed my body somehow sped up my spiritual sight.
God doesn't waste our waiting but turns it into wisdom.
I learned that sometimes the greatest forward movement happens in stillness.
Recovery wasn't just about healing my body but renewing my mind.
The eyes to see goodness must be trained to look beyond circumstances.
Those weeks taught me to find treasure in limitations.
To see abundance where I once saw only lack.
To recognize that slowing down isn't the same as falling behind.
Sometimes what feels like a detour is actually the path itself.
I'm moving again now, but differently than before.
Slower, more attentive, with eyes that look for goodness first.
The injury healed, but the lesson remains: God's goodness doesn't depend on our pace.
It's always there, waiting to be noticed by those willing to slow down and see.
My breaking became the beginning of a new way of seeing.
And for that unexpected gift, I am grateful.