Piled in the Basement

   

 I made a quick trip down to the basement, to put something back in it's storage place when I saw it all sitting there.  A wheel chair, two walkers, a stair stepping cane, toliet seat riser, and a bed rail.  It was only a couple a months ago, and these were all part of my daily life.  How far I've come, but how scary to see them again, and remember how bad off I was.  Unless you've come through something like I've been through, you just can't understand what it feels like to remember those things.  Yes, I'm rejoicing how well I'm doing now, but I know the pain and work it's taken to get here.  You just see the progress,  I still remember and feel the pain.  The pain of even trying to get out of bed, and pain shooting through my body, as I tried to move, my legs unwilling to go where my brain was telling them to go.  Move!  no response.  Move!  Still no response.  I'd push with my arms and hands, which caused more pain from the blister caused by an IV gone bad.  Move!  Shooting pain in my back, for trying to compensate for the lack of strength in my legs and hips.    This was brain surgery, why then aren't my legs working?  I didn't understand and still don't.   All I felt was pain and frustration.  Nurses and workers and family telling me to cooperate, but I was trying, but my body wasn't responding in the way I wanted it too.

    Yes, I know, I've been out of shape most of my life.  Never been the athletic type, and exercise seems like a disease I didn't want to have.  But now...  I had no choice but to work through painful sessions of physical therapy, while the PT cheered me on for shuffling a couple of feet down a hall way.  I looked like an old man with a runway swagger.  Barely being able to lift my feet more than an half an inch.  They set up 'hurdles' for me to cross.  One inch PVC pipes laid about a foot a part.  I knocked everyone of them out of place, not being able to lift my foot high enough to clear them.  I was humiliated, but determined to do better next time.

      If you would have been in the basement with me, you would have just seen the now unused equipment, but I saw something so much deeper than that.

Goodbye to Handicap Parking

 For the last few months I've called it my free parking sticker. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, just park in the handicap spot. But in reality it was a life saver for me. Even when first leaving the Rehab Center, to walk more than a few feet was painful and a tremendous amount of work, most of the time I was in the wheel chair, and later the walker or cane. That handicap spot was steps saved in my already drained energy level. 

    When my kids went and got the temporary sticker, which by the way has to be prescribed by a doctor, I was surprised at the expiration date. June 9, 2021. So the doctor doesn't think I'll need this past that date. At the time, it was hard to imagine not needing it, but now, it's the one thing I could agree with the doctor about. I won't be needing it any more.

   Using it gave me a whole new perspective on the word 'handicap.' Sometimes, as I had learned so much caring for my husband Todd before he died, you can't see that handicap. Even in my case, to look at me, you couldn't see it at first. But somehow cutting into my brain, caused the rest of my body not to work real well. My legs and hips couldn't figure out how to function anymore, and were so weak, they didn't respond to any signals from my operated on brain gave them. But I praise the Lord, that I no longer have that label of handicap. Even my PT in Bismarck said I was no longer in the fall risk category, so improvement were along with the date arbitrarily chosen by the doctor for length of use of the temporary sticker. Yes, I like that word Temporary, even listed on the card.

   
When I see others now, in that handicap position I know what they're going through. I know what it feels like to wish you weren't having to use the parking spot, or the handicap stall in the bathroom. You want to be free of that label, and need. So please be kind to those who are still needing those spots, they don't really want to be there either, but they need the extra help that closer parking spot gives them, or the extra room in the rest room. Don't block those who really need it, from the ability of its use. 

2020 Vision

   Wow, we’re in the year 2020!  The very number to me, lends itself to the phrase, 2020 Vision.  We want to see clearly, and perfectly.  2020 vision is what eye doctors call “normal” vision for a human.  How we see things really alters how we ‘view’ things in life too.  In Luke 11:34, it says, “The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore, when you eye is good, you whole body also is fun of light. But when you eye is bad, you body also is full of darkness.”  So it’s important what we see.  In the natural many of us, myself included, need corrective lens to see things clearly.   I remember when my oldest son got his first pair of glasses, he was so in awe, that trees had individual leaves, and he could see them.  Before the glasses, everything was just a blurry green mass to him. The world around him became so sharp and clear.  So with us in life, sometimes we need corrective lens to make things sharp and clear.  The only true corrective lens of life, is the Word of God.  It brings everything into clarity.  We begin to see things like God sees it, and that is with perfect 2020 vision.  

   In the book of Ephesians, the apostle Paul prayed “that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you…”  (Eph. 1:18)  We need to make this our prayer this year, that the eyes of our hearts would be enlightened.  Start each day by opening up the Word of God and letting His words correct your view of life.  His ways are perfect and oh so clear when we follow them.  May 2020 truly be a year of 2020 vision.

Sailing by Ash Breeze

    I recently reread a book I had read many years ago, that was an assigned book in one of my kids homeschool literature class.  “Carry On Mr. Bowditch” by Jean Lee Latham, is a wonderful read of the life of Nathaniel Bowditch, who was a small boy at the end of the American Revolution.   His mother passes away and at the old of twelve becomes an indentured servant until he is twenty-one.  In his younger years, his teachers had viewed him as a mathematical genius, and encouraged him to go to Harvard to further his education.  But when he becomes indentured, all hopes of attending Harvard go down the drain. By the time he was ‘free’ at twenty-one, he was considered much too old to be attending Harvard!  Although a friend continuially told him he was ‘becalmed’, Nathaniel, or Nat as he is called, refused to give up hope and began to ‘sail by ash breeze.’  

    Since I’m a Dakota prairie girl, any sailing terms are pretty foreign to me.  My Mom grew up near the coast in Maine, but on a dairy, not in a sailing family.  Although I often remember her telling me when times were tough to, ‘Hang to the riggings,’  hold on, and don’t let the storm throw you overboard in other words.  But the phrase, ‘sail by ash breeze’ was a new one for me.  When you become, ‘becalmed’ or maybe more commonly said, have the 'wind knocked out of your sails’ there’s still another way to sail the sail boat.  You sail by ash breeze.  Most oars were made of ash wood, so if the wind isn’t blowing, pull out the oars and begin to sail.  Sailing by ash breeze is a lot more work, but you still get there.  In the case of Nathaniel in the story, he continued to study in all his spare time, and ended up teaching himself, Latin, French, and Spanish, plus navigation and all the mathematics it required.  He ended up becoming a clerk and 2nd mate on a ship, and continued to study and work hard.  He even taught many of the sailors on board navigation, and they were able to better their lives by getting better positions aboard ship.  By the end of his life he was a Captain of his own ship. He was even given a degree by Harvard for all his scientific discovery in the area of navigation, even though he never set foot in a class room at Harvard.  He continued his whole life ‘sailing by ash breeze.’   He truly learned that you 'can’t adjust the storm, but you can adjust the sails.' 

   So if life hasn’t turned out exactly the way you had hoped and planned, remember to ‘sail by ash breeze’ and 'hang to the riggings.’  Or translated into our prairie life, keep on plowing and never give up.  There’s more than one way to accomplish your dream.  

    2 Timothy 2:15 says, “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that need not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”