Good morning…
A year ago this month, when we were with our 2022 group in Israel, I received a text from my dad reporting that my 83-year-old mom had fallen in exercise class and had broken her femur. That began a fiasco of a year. Surgery. Recovery at the care center in their senior living community. Rehab and physical therapy. Wheelchair to walker. A stroke. Sepsis shutting down her organs. Unresponsive in the ICU. With a mammoth amount of prayers being lifted, my mom miraculously opened her eyes to the sound of my dad’s voice. Back to the skilled nursing care center. More rehab and physical therapy. Wheelchair to walker again. Eventual return to their independent living villa. Another fall. A second break in the same femur. Eight weeks of bed rest again in the care center. Even more rehab and physical therapy. COVID. Wheelchair to walker to cane. Settling into their villa in the loving care of my father.
Why do I replay for you again the details of this very, very challenging year? Because when I was home this weekend, I saw life anew through my mother’s eyes. On Saturday morning she said, “I look forward to doing my exercises three times a day in the guest room where you are staying. The walls are filled with pictures of you kids and your families. When I look forward and move my head slowly up then down, I stare directly at Andy’s family.”
“When I turn my head to the left,” she continued, “I see dad giving high school diplomas to you three kids. When I look to the right, I see the graduation photos of ten of our twelve grandkids, with space left for the final two.”
“When they hung these photos for us as we arrived in our villa, I had no idea how meaningful it would be to have these wall covered with the faces of our family,” she said. “I look forward to doing my exercises three times a day, because I get to feel the smiling presence of our family with me.”
I love looking at everyday life through the eyes of my extremely grateful mom. Journeying as a family through a very hard year, we have lived into the words of Psalm 139:14. I will offer You my grateful heart, for I am Your unique creation, filled with wonder and awe. You have approached even the smallest details with excellence; Your works are wonderful; I carry this knowledge deep within my soul (VOICE).
May we each grow a grateful heart, filled with awe and wonder as a unique creation of the living God. Down to the smallest excellent detail, the works of our Creator are wonderful. Might we carry this knowledge deep within our soul?
…Sue…
