I can't fix this . . .

I knew today was coming. I knew it last night. I knew it last year. But when I shook hands with destiny, I decided I didn't like her. And whether that was a fair presumption or not, I didn't care.

Last night Sierra, our Chow Retriever Mix, wasn't eating. Her back right leg was giving her trouble. To the point where she barely greeted up after we got home. It got worse.

Last year, I watched big, old dogs come into the clinic with hip and knee problems. Some came in happy but with a serious injury that wasn't worth the fight. Others were wasted after trying to regain a long lost youth. After the owners had spent thousands of dollars and hours only to be given the ugliest memory. In my mind was a count down.

Today we took Sierra into the vet. She tore a ligament in her knee. Surgery is $3,000. She's 13. As I stood over her, protectively as the doctor gave her sentence, I felt the strike as the clock reached zero. And as ugly and painful as that is, I can't fix it. I can't change it. And it made me think about my own clock. When will I be out of commission? Broken with no one to fix me? Will I have focuses on the things God has called me to? Or have I done a bunch of half jobs that I thought needed done?

This has been a reoccurring theme this past week. Something God has been teaching me. First, He taught me I couldn't control everything. Then He taught me to overcome the odds, the judgements, the impossible. And now He's teaching me something new. Something I don't want to hear. That I can't fix every broken thing I find.

To be honest, it kills. Because He's opened my eyes to the brokenness of the world so that I might see His beauty more clearly. But in that I'm overwhelmed by everything that's hanging on by a thin little thread. And I start running in circles trying to help. But int hat ad rush, I upset the delicate balance. And strings snap.

Finally, I've sat down, broken pieces in hand, tears in eyes, and looked up to my Father. And He's told me just how incapable I am by myself. And how sometimes, this are going to hurt. That's what we chose by disobeying. He promises beauty from pain. But the pain must happen for the beauty to come. Just as the darkness makes the light that much brighter.

I don't like this answer.

I'm supergirl. I can fix anything and everything. Give me a challenge and I'll solve it. Give me the odds and I'll best them. Give me the average and I'll surpass it. I attack things full force. But that doesn't always work. Somethings can't be fixed. Somethings aren't mine to decide to change.

I was texting my friend about it today, voicing my frustration since this dog is my mom's. And how since we've moved, she's lost her friends, me, and now Sierra. He told me: Katie, you can't fix everything. He's right. I can't. I can't make this go away, can't make it better. But God can fill that hurt. He can make it over into something beautiful: the future. And she hasn't, will not lose Him, ever. And neither will I.

He's here holding all the threads. And I don't have to fix them all. I just have to follow mine.



<3 Katie