An Inspiration

The southwest facing windows were spotted on the inside with fly residue and coal fire film; on the outside they were marked with many a winter rain. I grabbed the ladder and the window-washing equipment and headed out, but in my way were a few overgrown shrubs.

That sent me off for the hedge clippers. I couldn’t just clear a path for the ladder, but spent a bit of time stretching and reaching as I clipped the other shrubs in the line. Then washed the windows and can once again enjoy the sunsets.

Playing with lively grandkids over the next few days, however, strained already over-stretched old muscles and now I sit, hot water bottle and BenGay on my back, nursing frustrating aches and pains.

Limitations. It’s hard to accept them and learn to live within them. I encounter more of them as the years go by. Things I would never have hesitated doing, I sometimes think twice before doing them. Things I should hesitate doing, I pay the price for if I ignore caution.

My limitations, so far, are small potatoes compared to those suffered by others. An inspirational friend, a man of faith, has passed on into the glorious presence of God this past weekend, a man who could still manage a smile despite the ravages of motor neurone disease which froze every other muscle. By the grace of God, he and his family managed to live big and brave over these last few years as the horrible disease took its toll.

Though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, God walks with us. The darker the valley, perhaps, the greater the light shines in and through us, if we let it. Stephen did that.

Today I thank God for his example, and for the inspirational way his family supported him throughout. And I praise God that though we all walk through that dark valley, none of us walks to it – it is never our ultimate destination. Today Stephen is out of the valley. Hard as that is for those who loved him, it is also a deep consolation.