My main problem this weekend was not having enough energy to do all that was available to me. Good problem to have!
Yesterday I walked around on my KAFOs while Rebecca’s brothers grilled on the rooftop here. Since I had two strong guys close by, I successfully attempted walking up and down a few ramps. That was a new one for me. And I also stepped down from a raised area. Really hard to do when you can’t bend your knees! I’m very much looking forward to tomorrow when I can get my KAFOs (knee-ankle-foot-orthotics) turned in to AFOs (nothing above the calf). That is huge for two major reasons (at minimum):
- I will be able to put them on in 1/10th of the time. Just like putting on shoes.
- I will be able to sit down easily with them. The KAFOs require my legs to stay straight when I sit down and are really hard to unlock.
The second one means I should be able to strap them on and use them at various times throughout the day without much trouble. Very happy about that.
After grilling out we jumped in the car and headed downtown to listen to the Chicago Symphony play in Grant Park. I love doing that and still can’t believe it’s free. We had the whole spread of cheese, wine, beer and also took full advantage of my handicap parking tag. I may have to get a car considering metered parking is free with that thing. Apparently for $200 I can get a device that lets me drive entirely with my hands. We’ll see.
Today after church Pastor Joe Riccardi and a couple elders anointed me and prayed over me with Rebecca, Stephen, Leah, Brandon, Emily, and Chris. It was really powerful and moved me way more than I anticipated. It was straight out of James 5:14-16:
14 Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
Before they prayed over me I confessed that I struggled with pride - in many ways, but there are currently two main ways pride gets me. 1) When I make progress I want to believe it’s my own doing and not God’s, which isn’t true. 2) I am too prideful to accept help. Or when I do accept help, it really bothers me. I hate being a burden to others or negatively impacting others’ lives. So I need to humble myself and accept my current situation as one that needs help and assistance at times.
Overall the anointing was one of the most powerful things I’ve experienced since being injured. I’ll be honest and say that while Rebecca and I were out walking the dog tonight I tried just standing up out of my wheelchair to see if my faith was strong enough to heal me. My right leg surprisingly kicked out easily, but when I tried to stand… not so much luck there! Healing comes in many ways. I wonder how God will heal me.
After that we went to the Cubs game, where I was very surprised to see how great the handicapped seating was. We had a great view of left-center field and my friends all had folding chairs. Erik joined the crew for that and we ran into some other friends at the ballpark. Really fun and as a bonus the Cubs actually won!
My mom came in tonight. She’ll be here for a few days. Therapy is in the morning and considering she hasn’t seen anything but this blog for about a month, it’ll be interesting to see her reaction to my progress. Also, thanks to the generosity of people that probably read this, we have several restaurant gift cards to use! Thanks! I’m not that big of a fan of McDonald’s but that’s alright! Kidding - they are to nice places.
I think we are taking Goldie back to PAWS tomorrow. Kind of depressing.
I love you all.
G’night
Chip
No comments:
Post a Comment