Rehab

Clouds and light covered the eastern sky. The sight brought me joy. Then I saw the Surprise Lilies clustering and blooming. Each year their arrival surprises me, and this year my delight seems more intense.

My granddaughter Jenny wrote in a tweet as she returns from a family vacation just what I felt this morning…so travel weary in the morning until I see God’s creation explode in its massive beauty. Somehow God’s creation all around us puts our lives and our hearts into perspective.

All through the long days of inactivity and my brain become a gray mush; I kept repeating that I am learning patience and endurance. I waited for the bad time to rush past. And it doesn’t. Somehow I knew there would be an end to this grayness.

Then the physical therapist gives me new exercises to do, and I feel the pull of muscles as they are drawn from inactivity and flaccidity. Ever mindful of a full-grown pain pang, I try to heed the admonition to go slowly. Rehabilitation requires forgiveness of what are, the frailties of being human. Not reliving what caused the interruption to the flow of life, but asking what is next.

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:13-14

The left hand on the pulley pulls my right arm to unaccustomed activity. S-l-o-w-l-y. The desire to rush through and be finished has to be quelled. Rome was not built in a day…. is a phrase that bubbles through my mind. I look at my lazy right arm, and say, ‘Rome, get moving’.

Surely I will get through this and be able to effortlessly drive the car, play the piano, dress in other than button down shirts, wash my hair with both hands, put on my socks with both hands, open jars, fix meals without 2^nd thoughts, trim my hair with my right hand.

Then I remembered a time when ‘the me’ of life was not important – and now I engage in a spiritual rehabilitation. I will go s-l-o-w-l-y and stretch spiritual muscles that have become flaccid with disuse. The praise and prayer muscles are first in the regimen. Praising God for each step towards health, and praise for all those who have supported me through prayer and encouragement. It is like a new lease on life, but deeper. From every set back we have, emotional, physical or spiritual, there is a rehab. A time of recovery and becomes a step beyond what we expected.

Just as physical therapy doesn’t happen all at once, but gradually – with baby steps – so does spiritual therapy. During this time I have been reading an extraordinary book with truths that hit my heart – Champagne for the Soul by Mike Mason.

A book that cannot be read in one gulp, but savored, chapter-by-chapter. Maybe more than a how-to book on finding joy, it is more a book of finding the Savior Who is the Author of Joy. Just when I think I understand, the next chapter opens another doorway into that joy. But I must open that door. Part of joy is the ability to recognize it. Living in the moment of joy, not in the past or the future – but this moment that God gives us.

Is there a secret passage into joy? Is it only for a select few? Is there certain language that must be used? Our passage into that doorway requires action on our part. Using muscles that we may not be using. Being able to hear the voice of Jesus and able to open the door.

Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me. Revelations 3:20.

We may dine with Jesus – and He gives us enough. His enough is abundance, a cup running over. How do we gain abundance?

Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. II Peter 1:1-2

An abundance of grace and peace through Jesus Christ trumps anything the world has to offer.

Just when life threatens to drown us in a sea of discouragement and sadness, is the moment when we need perseverance in opening the door to joy and continuing our continual spiritual rehab.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, Hebrews l2:1