Boldly from a wheelchair

“Does anybody have praises to tell about?”  The lady at my table smiled to tell the whole room, “It’s Wednesday, and I’m happy to come to church!”  Refreshingly, and very simply, she was right.  Her gentle voice matched a unique contentment in her eyes, both seeming to reach far beyond the circumstances of her wheelchair.  And her words had given me reason to pause.  This week has been different.  Kind of quiet, in fact.  A phone call to a friend with Crohn’s disease set me in a pensive mode.  A phone call to a friend dealing with dialysis set me pensive again.  Prior to those calls, I had sat with a friend at an infusion center downtown, my eyes being opened for a closer look at the processes of blood replacement and liver transplantation.  Each moment held its own reason to ponder and be thankful, and I loved the availability the Lord had given me to serve—waiting for my friend and being so glad for her to regain some energy, entertaining the little boy at the clinic who loved to eat Skittles while waiting for his grandpa, talking with the lady making a cross-stitch bib while waiting for her son, and overall being thankful for the many who donate blood in order for all these to receive.  All in all, life has appeared more fragile lately.  I look forward to some friends coming for dinner on Saturday, realizing they too have dealt with fragility in the form of cancer.  It’s a Psalm 46:10 week.  I can sit still and know God.  As my table-mate reminded me last night . . . it’s Thursday, and I’m happy to have come to know the Lord!