No
matter how hard I struggle at PT, I cannot lose my limp. It’s right at
the end of my gait – as I’m coming out of the stride. Committees of
therapists have observed my walk “to the end and back”, leaning their
heads together and mumbling. I have been encumbered by hand weights,
ankle weights, weighted poles, shoe lifts, resistance bands and even a
leash as I have hobbled my version of a catwalk before these assessing
eyes. And it’s always a little bit better…maybe. No – try it the other
way. I lean toward the left, tighten my abdominal muscles, press the
weight through to the outer edges of my feet. I walk so intentionally
that I sweat from the effort. Still…they’re thinking.
Today
a part of my leg was stretched that I could not feel. And I mentally
tallied all the places that remain numb: top of my foot, side of my leg,
bottom of my back…hmmm. Nerves regenerate at an excruciatingly slow
rate, and naught can hurry the wee things.
And so here I
am, eyes stinging in disappointment and frustration, with the lesson to
wait. I would have thought I’d learned it by now, but perhaps that is
the true impediment. I have to know waiting as a way of life, not a
solitary achievement. I can’t put in the time and then clear this
hurdle. I have to yield my goals, my timetable, my vanity, my
strength.
Yield everything. Forever.
“O
LORD, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do
not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I
have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, hope in the Lord
from this time forth and forevermore.” Psalm 131
