Update:
Sunday was very quiet. With the
weather forecast predicting dangerous wind chills, we cancelled church as a
precaution. That meant that I didn’t
leave the house. I spent time reading my
bible, some devotional books and praying in the morning. I enjoyed a hot shower, talked to my daughter
Ruth on the phone, and did some more reading about being fitted for a
prosthesis and learning to walk. I
watched the Packers loss to the 49er’s (sad, but what I expected). And that was my day.
Karen was gone most of the day on Sunday and will be gone most of the
day on Monday as this is Tech Week for her play, “Knights of the Round Table”
that opens at the State Theatre in Eau Claire on Friday at 7:30 p.m. So she’ll be spending lots of hours at the
theatre this week. I plan on rolling in
and watching the play on Friday night.
The muscle I strained in my lower back is getting better. I decided to stop doing my exercises and let
it heal. That seems to have been the
wise choice; although I miss doing my exercises twice a day.
Today, I go back to the surgeon in the afternoon. He should remove the remaining staples and
start me on the next “leg” of my journey—physical therapy to prepare me for my
prosthesis. I am writing this part on
Sunday night and I have to say that I have that “night before the opening of
deer gun season” kind of feeling. I am
excited and can hardly wait to start. I
am not certain how well I will sleep tonight in anticipation. There are so many unknown details ahead of
me; I look forward to gaining the next bit of information. There is also a slight apprehension
concerning the physical exercise.
Mentally I want to take it on and work hard so that I gain the strength
and ability that I need. At the same
time I am apprehensive about whether I will be equal to the task. Not knowing what to expect has got me all
flustered. By Monday afternoon after my
doctor’s appointment, I hope I will have settled down again.
I do feel bad that Karen will have to spend so much extra time outside
loading me and my wheelchair into the car on such a bitterly cold day. It used to be that I would do all of the
outside chores and I tried to warm the vehicle up for her and knock the snow
off of the car if we were going out together.
I can’t do that now. It is
surprising how grievous that is to me.
I haven’t spent much time distraught over what I am unable to do. I really have accepted that this is who I am
and how it is. But knowing how cold my
wife always is, it goes against my nature to see her out in the cold doing for
me what I used to do for her. She hasn’t
complained and has gladly done whatever needed doing. I guess I should focus on the fact that most
likely it will only be for this winter—by next winter I should be able to get
around more and pick up at least some of my normal outside chores.
Saturday night, I didn’t sleep well again. I was up for over an hour in the middle of
the night. I am glad that I didn’t have
to get up for church and could catch the sleep back up. This time I think the poor sleep was due to
the sore muscle in my back. I realized
that it was time to flip the mattress because I had made a “wallow” with all
the time I have spent sleeping in the same position night after night. Karen flipped it and remade the bed, so I slept
better on Sunday night.
With all this said, I am doing well.
I am very positive about the progress that I have made and feel good
about the future. It has been just over
a month since my lower left leg was amputated.
I am grateful to the Lord God for the ability to trust Him and to focus
upon the positive in this adventure that I am on. By nature, I have a sense of adventure and I
like new toys, tools, etc. Well, I am on
an adventure of a lifetime. I am sort of
following a treasure map to the next clue and seeing where that leads. And as far as new toys/tools, how many guys
can say, “Wow! Look at this new leg that my wife just got me for my birthday”?
Thought for the Day:
Philippians 1:29 “For it
has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe
in him but also suffer for his sake”
John 16:33 “I have
said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will
have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
Suffering should not
surprise us. We should expect it. God’s word tells us that we will experience
it. But for whatever reason we tend to
be caught off guard when it strikes. We
may never have stated it out loud, but we kind of expect that if we are
obedient in following God, only good things will happen to us. God will protect us and bless us with a
comfortable life, good health, happy family and a secure job. With this kind of understanding, when
something goes horribly wrong, we think God has failed to keep His
promises. We feel betrayed and we turn our
back on God.
The problem isn’t that God
has failed us; or that God is not powerful enough; or that God doesn’t love us
after all. The problem is that we
misunderstood what God has said about the effects of sin upon the world, which
includes suffering, illness, disaster, and death. We read the “good parts” of blessings and
watchfulness and overlooked the “bad parts” of suffering and tribulation.
Randy Alcorn in his book, If
God is Good: Why Do We Hurt? says, “If you are a Christian, God will
deliver you from eternal
suffering. And He will deliver you through your present suffering, though
not always from it.”
When I first dislocated my
left shoulder back in the late 1970’s, Karen and I went to the doctor’s office
for an evaluation. I left his office
happy and upbeat because I only heard the “good news.” Karen, on the other hand, was much more
somber because she heard the “bad news.”
I had tuned out all the talk about nerve damage, pain, the potential for
more dislocations and the need for corrective surgery. We had to compare notes to get a
comprehensive and accurate picture of what the future held. I ended up never having surgery; I’ve only
fully dislocated once more in the late 1980’s but I have nerve pain and have to
limit my use of my left arm to this day.
Our natural desire is to be rescued from all difficulty and pain. It is what we want but it isn’t what we get
in this life. We have to remember that
when we face suffering and tribulation it isn’t because God failed us somehow
or that we have sinned and God is punishing us.
It is what it is.
The good news is that “God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." (Hebrews 13:5b). God
will be with us each step of the way. We
can expect that He will give us comfort and support as we rely upon Him. While I was in the hospital facing wave after
wave of discouragement and difficulties, the only thing that got me through was
knowing that God was walking with me each step of the way. He had not abandoned me. He was there.
I sometimes questioned “why?” but I never doubted Him.
Psalm 18:2 “The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my
deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of
my salvation, my stronghold.
When you go through troubles and tribulation, hang onto the promises of
God—what He has said (not what you wish He had said). He is sufficient. Hang onto Him and you will find that it is
true.
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