I DID it!!

Nicole Marie Hilton, January 17, 2022

The highlights of our stories are when we triumph after a fall. That’s why we’re here, after all: for those moments. Christ brings us victory over the Fall, but it’s the overcoming where the value is. Thank Goodness for the fall.

I got up off the floor for the first time by myself. Tears are streaming down my face, and I’m so happy and grateful to Heavenly Father for helping me to have the strength to actually WANT—desperately—with all my heart to do this. And I actually did it!

I need plenty of help to get through a day, and I’m grateful for it. But my privacy pays a price. This morning I was frustrated that my alone-time was being interrupted, again. I told my parents to leave me and “LET ME TRY to do it on my own!” So they left me in bed, with my wheelchair nearby.

Two minutes later, while trying to transfer out of my bed to the wheelchair…I fell down to the floor. There has been no way that I’ve ever successfully gotten back into bed or into my wheelchair without major help from at least one other person. Being paralyzed just above the navel, my body below my lower stomach muscles is just dead weight.

I tried everything—for thirty minutes I struggled and cried. I crawled around on the floor alternating from my belly to my butt—my legs flip flopping around behind and in front of me. I wrangled my legs together and tried lifting myself up onto the chair, the foot rest, the wheelchair, the bed. Nope. I could have called for help, but my little girl personality is growing up and wanted to do this by herself—and I wholeheartedly agreed.

What if my parents were to walk in RIGHT AFTER I had told them that I could be independent and to “TRUST me”…and then I was on the floor? This has happened at least three times before, and I had had it.

I prayed and prayed. I kept on reminding myself that—according to James B. Cox’s motivational talks—this was the “curriculum of the day”. After trying at least five different techniques, I crawled over to the side of my bed and tucked my legs behind me. Then, my alarm went off which was Lauren Daigle’s song: How Can It Be. By the words, “Though I fall, You can make me new / from this death, I will rise with You,” I gathered up all my strength and somehow got a handhold on the far side of my bed. Then I lifted myself at least ten inches off the floor. I was thinking: “I’m doing it! I can do it!” I flipped my legs over and lifted myself the remaining twenty inches, then bawled my head off as I flipped over and sat up straight on my bed.

My heart is full. I’ve got my self-respect back today.

And now I’m going to try to get to my wheelchair again.

Though I fall, you can make me new

From this death, I will rise with you

Oh, the grace reaching out for me, yeah

How can it be, how can it be?

Lauren Daigle, “How Can it Be”