Still not vertical

Its now been 5 days since I have been able to walk.

Two days on the top of the hill - a miraculous cessation of pain that allowed me to walk down - and now another 3 days in bed since then.

I hoped to be on my feet by now.  We were planning as a family to go back to Thane this afternoon.

But all has had to change since I can barely get up to brush my teeth and use the toilet without having to limp back and nurse my spasming back.

So this morning - after some heart-searching and prayer we decided to cancel our tickets and rebook for next Friday night to Delhi (waiting list of course) and book flight tickets to Mumbai a week from today (well beyond our budget - but we are trusting).

Its been a melancholy time for me to be horizontal like this and not to have bounced back cheerily as I had hoped.  Its been hard for Sheba to have me bed-ridden.  The whole family has of course rallied around with tons of affection and care - but it never is easy to be an invalid.

And here I am frustrated after only 5 days - and that in the lap of luxury and beauty.

I was rereading the story of the man at the gate of the temple in Jerusalem that the apostles Peter and John met.  Crippled from birth.  Brought by others every day to beg.  Lying next to a gate that was called 'beautiful' but displaying his brokeness in order to try and elicit some pity by those on their way to worship.  Lying their outside the temple but never able to go in because he was not physically whole as Jewish ceremonial law demanded.  Taken home - wherever home was - at the end of the day by the same people who had brought him.  Did they take a cut from his earnings for their pains?

But it all changed when this man met Jesus in the lives of his followers Peter and John.  They did not give him the coins that he was hoping for - instead they took him by the hand and led him into the temple itself.  He was changed from a beggar to a worshipper - from a man who advertised his ugliness in order to gain coins - to a man who broadcast the power of God to change him.

I expect that I will walk again.  We have and are praying for this healing.

Every healing, every single one is a miracle.  Whether God uses my cytokines or whether there is some mysterious rearranging of the tissue is moot to me.  I am in awe of a God who cares and who touches me.

Though my old nature sometimes wishes things would go quicker.  According to my timetable.

But what I hope to take with me when I walk is a small gift that my pain has given me.  The reminder of my own mortality.  The reminder for me to do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with my Lord.  To remember Him not only when I am in pain - but in the 99% of the time when I am not - and feel that I am the master of my universe.

The upside of horizontality - lots of great uncle-niece bonding time with my newest niece Anita (4 months old)!