A Strong Place to Grab Hold
My mama has had a stream of home health folks coming and going since she returned to our house after her stroke back in October. She is slowly graduating from one therapy after another. Yesterday her physical therapist said she is doing great and that he expects to release her in just two weeks.
However, these days we have four residents in our house: Mother, Ray, me, and Mother’s forty-foot-long mostly green oxygen cord. I asked the physical therapist for strategies about how to keep it from being underfoot. He said that if he could figure that out, he wouldn’t need to work as a physical therapist anymore.
As Ray and I have stepped over it for the last many weeks, I have said more than once that it is going to be one of us who falls over it. Well, this is one time I didn’t want to be right!
Let me start out by semi-quoting Uncle Billy as he leaves the wedding reception of George’s brother Harry in “It’s a Wonderful Life”: “He’s all right! He’s all right!” We know that because we started out our day on Friday morning at our favorite walk-in clinic, where an x-ray revealed that nothing is broken.
For you to understand my story, I have to begin with the saga of our dining room table. It has served us well since we bought it second-hand about twenty-five years ago. However, as it has stood on its three pedestal legs, it’s never been the picture of stability. After being moved repeatedly during all our painting last fall, it’s middle name has become Rickety with a capital R, and Ray and I have talked repeatedly about replacing it.
Now, back to Thursday night . . . As Ray started across the dining room, he got his foot tangled in the oxygen cord. This threw him off-balance, so he reached for the nearest object to get some stability. Unfortunately, that object was the dining room table. When Ray put his weight on the nearest end of the table, the pedestal leg on that end broke off. The Christmas music boxes which were still (!) sitting on a red runner in the center of the table slid down the 45 degree angle just as if they were on a playground. And just like Ray, they stayed intact. The table runner even stayed put in the center of the table top.
When the table fell, Ray fell, too, landing on his back — somehow. As I said, the x-ray showed nothing broken. He is sore but improving.
Ray was in a crisis and did the only logical thing he could do: grab hold of something to try to keep from falling. Though rickety and squeaky, the table had never fallen before. I would have done the exact same thing.
We are all going to face crises again and again. It’s important that we stay close to God in the non-crisis times so that when the crises come, we have a strong place to grab hold.
The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,
My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge;
My shield and the horn of my salvation,
my stronghold.
Psalm 18:2