MOVE! …WHILE YOU CAN

It is power to move without thinking, with no pain, no real effort. If you are still in this place cherish and appreciate your power. My husband, Eric and I used to move quite a bit and then I had an accident on my bicycle a month ago. It was a hard fall that fractured my pelvis in two places and right clavicle. The process of recovery is slow and long.

 

When I married Eric forty-eight years ago, he realized the importance of moving, running to be specific. He bought a copy of Dr. Kenneth Cooper’s best-selling book, “Aerobics.” The plan presented in it was encouraging to begin and grow in. As he built his aerobic capacity jogging, he began to ride his bicycle to work. We were in our early thirties, and I did not want to be “left behind.” Dr. Cooper’s wife, I learned, wrote a companion book, “Aerobics for Women” a small paperback: it was a new beginning for me: it changed my life.

 

We had our first baby by then and lived in a mobile home rented from my parents. My sister, Char, decided to join me and we began walking one mile before daylight; then we would jog and walked, then finally jogged the distance.

 

My sister is still walking, five miles at a time in the town where she and her husband live. I grew in my interest too, continued jogging and worked myself into a position as an Aerobics Instructor at a local gym. By our fifties, Eric and I were lifting weights and jogging at a YMCA. Bicycle riding was our hobby. Eric read the Bicycling Magazines and we learned the traffic rules for biking.

 

That was then. Now we are in our late seventies. Eric’s hip replacement and colon cancer stymied his ability to get on the gym floor. Everything changed. I continued bicycle riding solo until late December, I ran into a fluffy bunch of leaves on a sidewalk, but it turned out to be a solid tree. I hit it hard.

 

A “moment of truth” for both of us: what is the plan now? In short, Eric and I are experiencing pain in our bones. His hip surgery and colon cancer, my bicycle accident. Without repeating a previous Blog, our future has taken on a new challenge! We are alive, vertical, we can move. But we are in transition: can we, at this age, heal and strengthen? Will our bones grow whole? Can we be strong and limber again? Move while you can!

 

Last night, lying in bed, a hopeful plan began to form. We can move. We will, by the grace of God, take on the challenge of growing as strong and healthy as the LORD allows.

 

The challenge from the Therapists is my challenge to you: “Move while you can! “

“What? Know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which you have of God, and you are not your own.?” I Co 6:19

YOUR MARRIAGE IS PRICELESS: BE VIGILANT

It is one challenge at a time. One incident. One bout of discord, disappointment, anger. Unresolved and walked away from, the rift grows.

 

A marriage, cherished and preserved is worth the humility and initiative it takes to bring back the peace, accompanied by the satisfaction of restoring unity: it is love. This is not about a feeling, but a vision of God. His ways and means for keeping your marriage together work to preserve your household, (made up of whoever it may be).

 

“Humble yourself in the sight of the LORD, and He will lift you up.” James 4:10. And then there is this, from the Prophet Jeremiah to the most powerful couple in the Kingdom: “Say unto the king and to the queen, Humble yourselves, sit down: for your principalities shall come down, even the crown of your glory.” Jeremiah 13:18

 

There is a good and proper fear of God. It will give you caution if you are wise enough to stay close to Him. Through the Old Testament, repeated defiance of God, revolt from the mind and heart, turned the people of God into a scattered, lost nation. Will we learn? There is a way to learn, know the way of God, the Creator, Designer, lover of our souls. This is the God Who sent His Son, Jesus to suffer and die for us! Demonstrating his power, He rose again.

 

The antidote to disintegration of your marriage is keeping up with “I shouldn’t have said that. Please forgive me.”  “I made a mistake.”  “I was wrong.” “I love you.” “You are the best; thank God, I married you.”

 

It is one humble move at a time. The answer for not growing apart, is to fertilize, water and nurture growing together. Growing together is obeying the LORD. “Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.” Colossians 3:19. “The wife, see that she reverences her husband.” Ephesians 5:33. I wondered at the beginning of our forty-eight years, “What does reverence mean?” So, I decided not to question the reason, but make certain that I gave him respect, cooperation, to listen to him, not only just his spoken word, but his unspoken heart: because he was my husband. You can learn to “read” him…and you can be forthright with also “speaking” your own unspoken words.

 

Marriage is worth the exercise in humility as you preserve it one dilemma at a time. Your marriage, home and family are worth protecting and cherishing. When those you look up to and respect fall apart, you begin to understand the sorrow you yourself might cause when you do not.

 

Vision is gaining a clear picture in your mind of the vow to God and its meaning when you marry. Vision is planning to create the life you dreamed of when you said, “I do.”

A BICYCLE ACCIDENT THAT WORKED TOGETHER FOR GOOD

It was only a second of inattention on the bicycle, riding across a quiet street to a sidewalk I hit a protruding, “round ball of leaves” shoulder high. Though I had ridden this route for years, I discovered this day that it was not leaves only, but a sturdy tree hidden by the leaves. I had noticed and avoided the overgrown palmettos and oak branches draping over the sidewalk in this spot every time. This day, I did not.

It was December 2021, at three in the afternoon on a slight downward slope, I hit the hidden tree on my left side, the impact threw me on my right side; I fell to the sidewalk and a strip of grass: the right clavicle and pelvis hit hard and fractured. I lay there on the ground, stunned.

When I looked up a young woman was standing over me, her two young sons waiting in her car. “Do you have a cell phone?” She called Eric (who was on a “tracker” backup). Two Police Officers were there it seemed in seconds and stood by asking questions about how I felt, could I see clearly, did my head hurt? They stayed watch until the ambulance drove me away. Another man appeared who knew the neighborhood I live in and told the officers, “I know her, she rides by my Sunoco Station often. What Sunoco Station? I still do not know. The Ambulance arrived, a fire truck behind me, the police car all lights flashing. When the Medic asked if I wanted to go to a Hospital, I was not ready to make that decision. I asked the senior Officer, “What do you think?”  Ambulance medics answered my request to help me stand up…stood around poking to see where the pain originated. When they allowed me to try to stand alone, I would have collapsed, except that they were ready, I decided to go to the hospital.

This accident is only worth telling because I believe this: *“In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.”  That Wednesday was cool and sunny. I had been especially positive as I rode, filled with gratitude that I had a bicycle, a safe route, the ability, and freedom to ride. (This mistake was not stupidity; my husband had led the way years before by riding to work on a bicycle. He had read Bicycling Magazine, the rules and regulations, safety habits and he had bought me a bicycle like his when we were first married. We rode together and with our three sons for family outings.)  His hip replacement hindered him for now, so I decided to make bicycle riding a personal pursuit… until he could ride again.

God has our best interests in His plan for His people. What do I learn from this? This is a fresh experience in early 2022. When I rode, often I would pray, meditate on Scripture. I had prayed that day, “LORD, please give me stronger faith.” Then I remembered the disciples had made the same request to Jesus. His response was, “If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you might say to this sycamine tree, ‘Be plucked up by the root, and be planted in the sea; and it should obey you.’”  Lord, I have faith, help me to exercise it, apply it, believe You.

About an hour later, I was lying on the ground with two fractures. There is a sure promise, *“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.” It does! It always will!

Can this be? I am glad it happened. It is opportunity to gain experience, to believe God: *“Who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.”

Therapists, a designated doctor from the hospital, equipment sent home with me are new blessings. I do not walk right now, not really, but a wheelchair is an awesome way to travel the around the house. This is an effective way to know by experience what others go through

*Proverbs 3:6. 12; Luke 17:6; Romans 8:28; 2 Corinthians 1:4