My Sweet Mama came out today and drove me to my first outpatient physical therapy appointment.  I’ve been trying to be brave, and doing therapy at home and telling myself that maybe it won’t be too bad —  And then crying sometimes at night when the pain is bad and I’m discouraged and visions of MEAN people forcing my leg into positions unthought of by me for many a year –.

And I sat on my chair this morning, feeling like I was getting ready for the guillotine, listening to Christmas music, and weeping.

“Mary, did you know that your baby boy, will one day walk on water?
Mary, did you know that your baby boy will save our sons and daughters?
Did you know that your baby boy has come to make you new?
This child that you delivered, will soon deliver you.

Mary did you know that your baby boy will give sight to a blind man
Mary did you know that your baby boy will calm a storm with his hand
Did you know that your baby boy has walked where angels trod
When you kiss you little baby, then you’ve kissed the face of God.

The blind will see, the deaf will hear, the dead will live again
The lame will leap, the dumb will speak the praises of the Lamb.

Mary did you know that your baby boy is Lord of all creation?
Mary did you know that your baby boy will one day rule the nations?
Did you know that your baby boy is Heaven’s perfect lamb?
This child that you are holding, is the Great I AM!
~Mark Lowry, Buddy Greene

I thought about the promises in that baby — that He would save our sons and daughters, that he is Lord of all Creation, and then those powerful things that I want so much, “the lame will LEAP, (that’s me!) the dumb will speak (that’s my Cecilia) the dead will live again (that’s my precious daddy) and that business of giving sight to a blind and calming a storm with his hand — how many times have I needed sight for this soul which is often so blinded?  And the storms of this rebel heart have been often calmed by the touch of the Man who had once been Mary’s Baby Boy.

And then, to remember that this baby became the Savior of the world and will one day rule the nations — especially in these days of such unrest and uncertainty.  Where there is war and starvation and deprivation and depravity and so much to decry in the world at large — and I have trouble with the world that is my heart.  How can I expect the rulers of our land and the leaders in the world today to manage their countries in a right way when I can’t manage the patch of ground that is my heart? 

And then I went off to therapy.  I was feeling so teary that I asked my friend, Emma, to please pray that I wouldn’t cry.  She comforted me by saying that physical therapists were trained to work people harder when they cry.  Whoops!  Okay, she really needed to pray that I wouldn’t cry.

Maybe physical therapy has changed, maybe not.  In any case, all the prayers worked.  I had a tough time at physical therapy physically, but I had a grand old time emotionally and even spiritually.  It was work, but I can see how the work I’ve already done has paid off, and I am so excited about the progress I am making.  There’s a long way to go, and I’ve been comforted so greatly about how to manage my time up and my time down.  And I am reminded that, just as in this life, there is no way to get through it except to GO THROUGH IT, so I have to do this now, and even when it makes the tears stand in my eyes, and even when I think I just can’t, when I think of the joy set before me — and think of how God is building His Image through this, it gives me courage to hang on just a little longer.

And when I remember that last desperate week before surgery, when I could scarcely walk, and I dreaded going up and down the steps and I wondered if it would ever be better, then I am really grateful, because I am already walking way better than I did then, and the steps hurt less now than they did then, and there are so many things that are already improved.

“For the Joy set before Him, He endured the cross, despising the shame, and is sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. . . “

 “Lord Jesus, this is so small in comparison.  Let me be faithful  in small things.”