Enjoy the Miracle of Healing

I love Facebook. I can see what people are doing and see photos of their children and grandchildren. Yesterday, I found my best friend from a grade school in Oregon on Facebook. I'm so excited to catch up with Susan again. What irritates me about Facebook, is when people post a one-liner and expect others to know what they're talking about! Perhaps, you don't know what I did from my various posts, nearly three months ago, so I'll tell you. 

On May 9, I was quickly stepping up into our RV van when something happened that drastically changed my life--and my husband Jim's--for the next three months, and beyond. I stepped up four stairs, tripped somewhere on the last two steps, and then fell. Did my ankle break while on the steps, or after I hit the ground, three feet below? I'm not sure, but it doesn't matter, for I knew I'd done something dramatic to my leg. After going to the tiny hospital in Tillamook, together with the physician on duty, we determined we should go back to Vancouver to see my own doctor for surgery. So in the middle of the night--me on the bed in the back of the van--Jim driving up front, we drove back to our town. The emergency room was waiting for me and so was the doctor on call. Surgery followed. I had a soft cast for two weeks, then they put me in this orange beauty--I chose the color. 

Lots of people signed my cast. Even someone at Disneyland! My favorite, though, was the one prominent in the photo "Enjoy the Miracle of Healing." Medical science is so good at putting broken bones together, fighting cancer, replacing joints, too many for me to mention here. But what medical science can't do is heal. That's up to our bodies. So when my doctor looked at the seven broken bones in my ankle and had to put them together with seven screws, a plate, and several pins, he did what he could do. Now it was up to my body to do the healing. 

Weeks passed. No weight on the ankle for seven weeks. I did lots of sitting and used a knee scooter which is very helpful, but still not the same as two feet. Each time I saw the surgeon, he said it was healing a little better and at last this week, he told me the ankle is completely knitted together. Most likely stronger than it was before. 

I'm working with a physical therapist, for though the bone is totally healed, my ligaments are stiff and need exercise and therapy. That will take more time, but I'm willing to do the work. 

I am grateful to the surgeon who put my ankle back together. We didn't choose him, but we found out he is a nationally recognized micro vascular surgeon and a specialist in orthopedics of the extremities.  Wow. 

I love reading the Psalms. One of my favorite Psalms is 139. That chapter has brought much comfort to me when in grief I wondered why my husbands had to die when they did.  It reminds me God knows our days and I can rest in that. I found more today. I'm going to quote from The Message, which is not as poetic as other translations, but for today, it's appropriate:

God, investigate my life;

get all the facts firsthand. I'm an open book to you;

even from a distance, you know what I'm thinking.

You know when I leave and when I get back; I'm never out of your sight.

You know everything I'm going to say before I start the first sentence.

I look behind me and you're there, then up ahead and you're there, too--

your reassuring presence, coming and going.

This is too much, too wonderful--I can't take it all in!.....

(1 - 6)

Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother's womb. I thank you, High God--you're breathtaking!

Body and soul, I am marvelously made! I worship in adoration--what a creation! You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body (emphasis, mine); You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,

how I was sculpted from nothing into something. Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, The days of my life all prepared before I'd even lived one day. (13 - 16)

Do those words give you a tingle like they did me? I know I can rest in those words. I can know this accident wasn't a surprise to God. 

So today, rejoice with me in the miracle of healing. And God's providential care, and love. It's real. And breathtaking! 

Vows Are Costly

Fifty years ago, I said these words:

I, Shirley, take you Bill, to be my husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part. 

Interesting, the vows begin with "to have and to hold from this day forward." If a couple knew what the future would be, they might hold on a little tighter.

Then come the words, "for better or for worse." We quickly learned about those words. There was more of  the "worse" than the "better" in the early years, but we learned how to experience the "better" after a time. Sometimes we aren't honest about our relationships. Was our marriage the only one with struggles? I don't think so--not if you look at the divorce rate. Our marriage had a lot of ups and downs in the first twenty years. I think all marriages have difficulty at times, we just don't talk about them. Maybe it would help other couples if they knew those times are fairly normal, and then get the tools to make them less. I won't go into what helped make our marriage better here, but I will in my upcoming book, Beyond Second Chances..Heartbreak to Joy. 

"For richer, for poorer." We had no idea really what those words meant. We weren't rich ever--but in those early days, we had little money. We were students and just starting out. Our rent was $65.00, our grocery budget, $8.00! We managed. Often there were only a few coins left by the end of the week, but we made it. 

The next phrase,"in sickness and in health" was hard to imagine at age nineteen and twenty-one, but that issue came about ten years after we married. Little Carrie Lynn was stillborn. That rocked our souls. Good health continued until the beginning of our forty-first year of marriage. After a joyous forty-year celebration, Bill became very ill. During those hard, hard days, we learned how much we loved each other and the "worse" times faded in our memories. Those sick days drew us closer together. We learned the "to love and to cherish" fully by then.

The last phrase is what every couple avoids thinking about "until death do us part." That won't happen to us, we think. But it does.

I'm so glad that at the young age of nineteen, I didn't fully realize the cost of those vows.

I thank God for His loving presence in the better or worse, richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; until death do us part. I'm reminded of one of my favorite Bible passages that helped me during those worse, rich or poor, sickness, and death:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword.....For I am convinced that neither death nor life,neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:35,38,39

He was there with Bill and I during all of those times, and later when I was alone. He'll be there for you, too. 

The wedding party, mostly family members

The bride and groom