I Noticed You Don't Limp

What keeps you going?  I do not know about you, but I need someone to push me when I won’t start, guide me when I need direction, pump me when I am down, move me when I am stuck, soothe me when I hurt, embrace me when I am lonely, and stand beside me when I struggle. 

I pray that as I face the uncertainties of life that I always have hope.  I have known several people that have given up hope and the result was death.  I want to have a living hope and that is difficult when I realize how fast evil is growing in our world today.  You and I must avoid killers of hope such as betrayal, trials, and death.

I had a yearly checkup with my knee surgeon on August 29, 2016.  After x-raying of both knees, Dr. Steele examined his handiwork bending my knees, straightening them, and swiveling them.  He asked if I had any issues.  Having none, he said, “I will see you in five years.”

That was great news considering that the last year had been a healing year.  Skibo, my knee therapist, saw me the one night at a Quarterly Men’s Meeting at Fairhaven Baptist Church in Demopolis, Alabama.  He said, “I watched you walking at Walmart the other day and noticed you walked without a limp.”  I responded, “I didn’t know I was supposed to having two new knees.”   He continued to tell me how good I did and how I was a poster child for his clinic Genesis Rehab.

Prior to my surgery, I was on the verge of giving up hope.  My greatest fear was losing the use of my legs.  I knew that there were hundreds of people that loss the use of their legs, especially veterans of the Middle East.  The uncertainty of total knee replacement, especially those I knew that were not totally successful, those that walked with a limp, got infections, and had to re-operate and replace replacements, made me doubt.

My knees deteriorated for over eight years after the initial diagnosis of severe arthritis, bone on bone, and a recommendation of total knee replacement.  The harder I tried to aid in the healing of my knees before surgery, the worse they became.  I eventually destroyed the ACLs in both knees and tore ligaments reaching the lowest point in my life physically, but it was beginning to affect me emotionally and spiritually.

Having had both knees replaced, Erma Davis from Dixons Mill Baptist Church, one of the churches I served, encouraged me have the surgery.  A pastor friend of mine told of a member of his family who had the surgery and wished he had done it years earlier.  When I started having fever, could not do steps, could not bend my knees, and could not move laterally, I paid attention to those trying to give me hope.

At our eldest son’s birthday dinner in Birmingham, we and our daughter, Angela went shopping in Brookwood Village.  Not being able to walk, I sat in the car.  It was a beautiful day for January 18.  I watched handicap students from the University of Southern Mississippi exit a van.  They were in town for a handicap tournament.

I noticed a student that had a prosthesis leg.  He wore shorts and tennis shoes.  I watched him move effortlessly in the parking lot.  I made up my mind that day that if I did lose my legs, I could do as this young man did.

During the pre-op for the first knee replacement, the lady in charge of pre-surgical exercises apologized for being late.  She had helped an eighty plus year-old lady into her car.  This little lady had had total knee replacement that morning.  I made up my mind.  If that little old lady could do well, I could.

The morning of my surgery, I had a Biblical, a Godly peace.  I knew that people were praying for me.  I knew that regardless of the outcome, that God would be with me every step, no pun intended, of the way.

I remember that there was no pain in my knee.  Sure, the knee was sore from the cutting of muscles and ligaments, the pulling, hammering, and cutting of bones, and especially the tourniquet, but there was no pain in the joint.  That afternoon after the surgery, I started walking.  Actually, having not bent my right knee in years, I learned how to walk again.  I couldn’t wait to replace the other one and wished I had not waited so long.

Learning to walk again is what we must do when betrayal, trials, and death wounds us, zaps our energy, and consumes our being.  Peter’s hope was obliterated after the betrayal, the trial, and death of Jesus.  But, after the Resurrection, Jesus picked him up from the pits of self-destruction and self-pity and challenged him.  Examine the difference in Peter when he wrote the early Christians when they were being persecuted.    

  

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.  Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls (I Peter 1:3-9 KJV).

"Bee Stings, Bug Zappers, and Bacteria"

Sitting on an old school bus sit out under the garage at the in-laws, I was moved by the aerial activity of flying wasps.  No, the wasps were not my problem.  It was the husband of my niece and my father-in-law who were trying to kill the flying creatures of pain and death.  With each swat of the broom or the swing of a swatter, the intensity of the angered wasps made me feel uncomfortable.

Wasp stings are not my favorite pass time at the in-laws although I have received some stinging remarks from the in-laws and their extended family over the last forty plus at these family Fourth of July family reunions and picnic outings. I have had numerous stings from bees, fleas, horse flies, sheep flies, yellow jackets, and red wasps.  I worried that someone who is allergic might have been stung.  I read and I heard that bee stings are good for arthritis.  I do not have allergic reactions, but I do have arthritis.

Just the other day I was weed eating a fence row when I thought I was having a severe attack of gout or sharp pain of arthritis in my right ankle.  My thoughts were, “What I have been eating to have the gout?” I thought maybe I lucked out and it would be just pain from a wrong step on the unlevel ground.  After two or three sharp pains, I decided to take a look at my ankle.  Is that a man thing ignoring pain?

I raised my pants leg and discovered a yellow jacket buried deep into my ankle.  To my surprise, I was in a yellow jacket nest and received only one dose of arthritic medicine.  Looking back, I have mixed emotions.  I am glad I had the pain of just one sting, or sad for just a small dose of painkiller?  The ankle did feel better after the swelling subsided.

A week or two before the yellow jacket arthritic treatment, I was attacked by a red wasp.  He flew into my sleeveless shirt and stung my chest in that tender spot between the armpit and the, well you know, the chest.  By the way, I do not have arthritis there.

Getting back to the interruption of my leisure moment and my time of meditation in preparation of spending the Fourth of July with the in-laws, I sat entertained, but concerned, at the mishaps of trying to hit flying wasps.

Moments before the aerial display, my nephew-in-law had spayed a single nest with two wasps with insect killer.  He knocked down the nest and secured our safety by crushing the two dead wasps with his foot.

After quick survey of the ceiling of the garage, the home base of the Kamikaze wasps was located.  As with the concealment of any enemy station, the wasps had planted a nest in the electrical discharge insect control system.  Your know, a “Bug Zapper.”  The device attracts and kills flying insects that are attracted by light.  A light source attracts the insects where they are electrocuted by touching two wires with a high voltage between them.  The name “zapper” come the zap sound produced when an insect is electrocuted.

Research shows that the process of electrocution spreads a mist containing insect parts up to seven feet.  Bacteria and viruses that can be inhaled by contaminated air around the bug zapper, or settle on the food of people eating near the device.  Another drawback is the traps are not effective at killing biting insects.  Many harmless and beneficial insects are electrocuted.  Wikipedia says, “A study over a summer found that 13,789 insects were killed, of which 31 were biting insects.”  It makes me wonder if the red wasps took advantage of the design flaw and build their nest at night during the time harmless and beneficial bugs were zapped.

I think it may have been because there was no power to the bug zapper.  No electricity, no electrocution.  No power because the power source was broken.

I know by now you are wondering where is the spiritual connection.

Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field:  But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.  But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also (Matthew 13:24-26 KJV).

Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is lunatick, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water.  And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him.  Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me.  And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour.  Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.  Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting (Matthew 17:15-21 KJV).

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