It was bound to happen.

With all of the many stairs in our temporary residence, there was no way I was going to make it through 4 months  of living here without some type of falling incident.

A couple of weeks ago, the wait for that moment was over.

I fell down the stairs.

Or more accurately, I fell down one stair.

Sounds like a simple trip, missing one stair to hit the landing.  No big deal, right? Or at least not a big deal for someone with any amount of athletic ability or balance.

But this was me we’re talking about.

Somehow, (and I am only guessing, as it happened so quickly) I must have missed the bottom step, tripped over the dog, and tried desperately to catch myself or find my balance and somehow landed 8 feet away from the last step, my head and neck crashing into and breaking the vertical post of the railing that leads to the next set of stairs.

The next thing I knew I heard screaming: my own yelling voice mixed with confused sobbing.  In that split second my life passed before my eyes. I was sure I had broken my neck and sustained enough head trauma to send me straight to the pearly gates.  A little dramatic, Jana?  Yes, probably.  But as I sat in a heap on the landing, the tears would not stop flowing.  And for the next hour or so, it seemed every bit of emotion I possessed spilled out all over the floor.

Every part of my body, literally from head to toe, hurt, reminding me of my fall.

Me breaking the stair rail and it breaking me.

Funny thing is, you couldn’t tell from the outside.  The bruises hadn’t fully surfaced yet, and the internal pain was just that – internal.  No one would ever know that a few days ago  I  thought my life was over.  (Okay, now that really DOES sound dramatic.)

Here’s my point:  How many of us are walking around with so much pain, regret, shame, trauma that our entire beings hurt on the inside?  How many of us have stories that have never been told that we keep secret, somehow hoarding the pain in our own weary souls?

We can look perfectly fine on the outside.  But eventually those internal bruises show up on the outside because inside, that pain is unbearable.  Suffocating. And eventually that pain will manifest itself through our health, our outlook, our attitude and countenance. In how we relate, or don’t, to others.

Conversely, how many people do we encounter every day who are hiding their own pain?  Are we gentle with the souls of others whose suffering might not show on the surface?

Imagine this:  What if we, with our stories of brokenness and heartache and failure, were to take the risk of letting someone in on our inside mess, or the mess that once was, and in the process released them to share their own struggles with us as well?

Can you imagine the beauty?  The relief?  The beginning of healing?  For us.  For them.

When I fell down the stairs and landed with zero grace or dignity, I was overcome with pain, sadness, fear and shame in my klutziness. But I had to be vulnerable enough to cry for help from my sweet husband to help lift me back up from that broken place. I walked away from that place, hurt, but wiser for the future, with newfound knowledge that could potentially keep someone else from falling like I did.

It made me more aware of my surroundings, of my own potential for making that mistake and others.

And it gave me a new compassion for others who have taken spills similar and dissimilar to mine.  An empathy for their pain.  Eyes to see what that lies beyond the facade of their seemingly happy face.

That was just a rumble with a staircase that did all that.

But what about life with it’s metaphorical mishaps and falls?

What if I was vulnerable enough to ask for help, share my struggle or tell about my journey back from pain?

I have stories of great loss and deep disappointment, crippling fear and moral failure. Just recently, I experienced something I thought my heart would not recover from.

Stories are meant to be told.

When I stop trying to be okay, or pretending to be okay, when I allow myself to be brave and put my heart, my REAL heart, out there, something amazing happens every single time.

I begin to heal.  My past loses its power over me.  Fear disintegrates.  I realize that, like walking away from the broken stair rail, I have survived.  I have learned.

When I am vulnerable enough to share my weakness, my brokenness, that weakness begins to morph into strength.  That brokenness begins to come together in wholeness.

James knew what he was talking about when he said this:

Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed.  James 5:16 The Message