Update:
The Hurd family is gathering for Christmas tonight. Everybody should be here for some special
family time. I am looking forward to
seeing everybody and spending time with them.
I’ll try to get people to play Scrabble with me again. We’ll exchange a few gifts, Ruth is cooking a
delicious pork tenderloin, and Karen wants us to sing and play instruments
together. Maybe I’ll borrow a second
wheelchair and we’ll have wheelchair races…Oh, Yes! It may get crazy! J
Yesterday, I was out at the church for about 90 minutes cleaning up
from the Christmas Eve Service and then at dinner time, I went to my wife’s
office party. I only lasted about an
hour before I needed to go home to recharge.
Two outings in one day—I am turning into a party animal!! Ruth returned home and wanted to watch a
movie. We got interested in The Help
and I stayed up way too late. Good thing
that I really don’t have anything to do on Saturday except this update. I can take a nap and store up energy for the
Hurd Christmas party tonight.
I am making improvements and gaining confidence. I found out that I can make it out the front door
to the porch and then onto the ramp landing and back inside all by myself. Getting the doors open while in the
wheelchair are a bit tricky; but now I can turn the porch light on and off,
unlock the front door and even pick up the newspaper (if they got it near the
door). I also discovered that I can now
stretch and turn the bathroom light on and off and flush the toilet without the
help of my hamburger flipper. I’ve gained
confidence and have a bit more flexibility than I did before. That feels good!!!
Tomorrow, I have an old friend preaching for me at church. Then beginning the first Sunday in January, I
plan to be back preaching. It is not the
preaching itself that concerns me, it is having enough energy and mental focus
during the week to prepare the message.
My doctor cleared me to go back to work at my own pace. We’ll we are about to enter a new phase of my
recovery.
As has been my practice, since tomorrow is Sunday, I will not post an
update again until Monday.
Thought for the Day:
Warning!
Today’s Thought is approached by Steve based upon his evangelical Christian
perspective. I am just expressing what I
believe the bible teaches as true.
One of the things most people with limb amputations deal with is
phantom pain. It can be as simple as
feeling like you still have a foot after an amputation; or it can be mentally
maddening when you have a persistent itch on something impossible to scratch. Sometimes there is extreme pain as if the missing
limb is injured.
Our minds and nervous systems are wonderful creations. In healthy limbs, signals are sent back and
forth when pressure or pain is sensed and then the mind gives commands to move
the limb out of harm’s way. This system can
work without conscious thought (autonomic nerve system) and we can take over “manual”
control decide how we will respond to the stimuli.
When we are injured and there is a loss of a limb, the nerves running
throughout the body are severed. The
signal no longer goes all the way to my toes and back to the brain. After 56 years, my body KNOWS that I have two
feet. Therefore, my mind supplies that
image and the whacked out nerves that were severed continue to send signals
that the mind then interprets into feeling or sensations, sometimes mild,
sometimes severe.
So far, I haven’t had any real phantom pain, but I have had what I call
residual mental images. I went for days
trying to cross my ankles when I was in my recliner. I would raise my residual limb and start to
cross my legs only to realize that I couldn’t do it. Right now, if I can’t see my stump when I am
getting into bed, I try to slip my right slipper or shoe off with my left
foot. My mind thinks that my good buddy,
the left foot, is still there. My
surgeon said that many amputees are injured when they get up out of bed in the
middle of the night to use the restroom and they forget that they don’t have a
foot. Ouch!
One of the techniques for dealing with this phantom pain in an amputee
is to massage the stump while looking at it.
Patting or tapping the end of the stump also helps. You are helping the mind re-calibrate and
establish that the foot is no longer there.
“Hey, brain! Those messages from
the nervous system that you’ve been interpreting from the foot are
inaccurate. The foot that is missing
cannot be itching—so cut it out and stop telling me things like that.”
Okay, so here is the spiritual point.
2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has
gone, the new is here!” When we accept Christ as our
Savior, there is a change that comes over us.
Our old sin nature is no longer in control, we’ve been set free and been
given a new spiritual nature. Out with
the old and in with the new!
If that is true, then why do
we continue to sin? It is like “Phantom Spiritual
Pain.” We have had years living in
sinful ways and making sinful choices.
It is natural and normal.
Although scripture says that we are no longer slaves to sin (See Romans 6:16-22), our minds and bodies
are conditioned to act in those old patterns.
We may no longer want to sin, but we feel helplessly drawn to it and we
continue in it. The way we overcome this
old nature is to re-calibrate our “Spiritual Nervous System.” We have to keep rubbing and patting the “spiritual”
stump so to speak. We keep reminding
ourselves, “That is no longer who I am.
I am a new creation in Christ.”
The bible says after accepting Christ, we are no longer sinners, we are
saints. That may seem like an unimportant
distinction, but think about it. What do
sinners do? They sin. What do saints do? They act in holy and righteous ways. The
bible says that according to God, I am no longer a sinner, but I am a saint who
occasionally sins. The more I remind
myself of this, the less frequently that my old sinful nature will rear its
ugly head. Spiritually we are a bit like
the proverbial chicken that has had its head chopped off but it continues to
run around the barnyard. It’s dead. It just doesn’t realize it yet. Spiritually we are dead to sin; we just haven’t
realized it yet. So read scripture and
ponder these truths. Choose to believe
what the bible says of you instead of what it feels like to you. As you do, these “Phantom Spiritual Pains”
should decrease and you’ll enjoy your new life in Christ even more.
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