Much Land Remains: Studying Scripture with a Concussion
A behind-the-scenes look at slow study, a stubborn head injury, and the quiet helpers on the table beside me.
On paper, this week's study looks fine. Two sessions at The Quiet Table, my ESV Study Bible open to Joshua, ESV Spiral Journaling Notebook filling up with handwritten observations, commentaries pulled off the shelf, candles lit, and the Companion Study App open beside me to keep my notes. If you only saw the finished pages, you might think I sat down with a clear head and moved through the method like I always have.
Here is what really happened. I opened my study one night with this prayer:
“Lord, I'm not doing well tonight. My head is hurting and I'm having trouble doing even the slightest normal things. I know I am slow and my brain isn't working right. I need your help.”
That's not a polished devotional opener. That's just true.
And when I say normal things, I mean the things I never used to think about. Church became too much noise and too much light, and I had to go home. Walking through the store under fluorescent lights was more than I could take. Recalling names and events, or even finding where my programs live on my own computer, took far longer than it should. I had slowed down. Way down. And here I was, about to dive deep into Scripture in a way my brain might not be able to keep up with.
The Fall
Two weeks ago I flew to Oregon for my daughter's wedding, and I had the joy of officiating it. The very next day, I fell down a staircase. Instead of finishing our trip, I flew home that same night, cutting our vacation short by five days, to get to urgent care and into the hands of my doctor and medical team here at home.
Two weeks later, I still have days where thinking feels like wading through wet sand. I've sat with my Bible open and felt the strange grief of loving the Word and struggling to hold onto it.
If you have ever walked through an injury, an illness, chronic pain, brain fog, or a season where your mind simply would not cooperate with your heart, you know exactly what I mean. You want to be with God in His Word. The wanting was never the problem. The doing is what got hard.
Record Keeping
This week's chapters are the ones most people skip. Joshua 12 is a list. Thirty-three defeated kings, each name followed by the word “one.” Sihon, one. Og, one. Jericho, one. Ai, one. On and on, thirty-three times.
I used to glaze over passages like this. But sitting with it slowly, and honestly, slowly is the only speed I have right now, I saw something I'd never seen. This chapter is a receipt. Before the land is divided in the chapters that follow, God has the record written down. Every victory counted. Every promise kept. “Not a word failed of any good thing that the LORD had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass” (Joshua 21:45).
God counts. He counts kings, and He counts hairs on our heads, and I have come to believe He counts every slow session when a tired woman with a healing brain opens her Bible anyway.
Much Land Remains
Right after the victory list, God says something startling to Joshua: “You are old and advanced in years, and there remains yet very much land to possess” (Joshua 13:1).
Much land remains.
The conquest wasn't finished. The promise was still unfolding. And God wasn't wringing His hands about it. He simply told Joshua what was still ahead and kept moving him forward, one allotment at a time.
I paused a little over that verse. Because that is my head right now. That is my recovery. Real victories behind me, and much land remaining. Healing that hasn't come yet. Abilities I'm still waiting to get back. And a God who is not surprised, not anxious, and not finished.
Victory does not equal completion. God's promises are fulfilled one step at a time, through people who trust Him enough to keep moving.
The Setting
My study still happens the old way, at the table with my Bible open and a pen in my hand. Handwriting the observations slows me down in the best sense, and there is something about candlelight and paper that no screen replaces. But this season, the Companion Study App sits open right beside the notebook, and it has become the quiet helper I didn't know I was building for myself when I made it in the first days of this recovery.
Studying with a brain injury has taught me this: structure is mercy. When the fog rolls in, I cannot hold seven steps of a study method in my head. But I don't have to. The app holds them for me while my hands stay on the paper. It walks me from prayer to raw observations to context to word study to the How questions, one prompt at a time. When my mind wanders, the next faithful question is still there waiting.
I also believe in being transparent about tools: I lean on AI helps in this season more than I used to. The word study on nachalah(inheritance) in this week's notes was AI-assisted. The chapter infographics were too. I check everything against Scripture and trusted commentaries, and I hold it all loosely. These tools are scaffolding, never the foundation. The Holy Spirit teaches. The Word transforms. The tools just help a tired brain keep up with a hungry heart.
Some seasons you study with strength. Some seasons you study with scaffolding. Both count.
When Your Mind Is Broken
Maybe you're reading this in your own fog. Post-concussion, post-partum, post-chemo, chronic illness, plain old exhaustion. Can I speak a word over you from Joshua's dry chapters?
God keeps the record. Your slow, imperfect, interrupted time in the Word is counted. The five verses you managed are written down in His faithfulness right alongside somebody else's five chapters.
And much land remains, for you too. The promise is still unfolding. He finishes what He begins, and He is not in the hurry we think He is.
So come to the Word however you can get there. Slow is allowed. Foggy is allowed. Honest prayers that start with “I'm not doing well tonight” are more than allowed. They may be the truest worship you offer all week.
He was faithful then. He is faithful now. Trust Him. Obey Him. Walk in the promise, even if you're walking slowly.
The Lyric & Letter Companion Study App is free at app.lyricandletter.com.
