Oh the Pain, the Pain!

Elsi left such a beautiful comment to my last post--touched my heart--that I thought I'd clarify something here, rather than in a comment.

The thing about my shoulder now is that it is not painful--except when I do my rehab stuff. So I could go the rest of my life like this, arm that works somewhat, and never have pain.

Or, to regain the function that my arm was created for, I must go through the pain. In these months, my therapist has been the expert at dealing out the pain for my own gain, but now that I've "graduated", it's up to me to apply and endure the pain...for my own health.

Each time my therapist pushed and pulled my arm, causing enough pain so I was kicking the table, she'd whisper, "Relax, relax. It's okay." As the months went on, I began to believe her, because I saw the results. And I trusted her to cause such pain for my own benefit. And now I'm an expert at working my shoulder into that pain, knowing it's the best thing for me.

I could sit this one out, and have no more pain. Or, I could keep working.

And if this isn't a marvelous (though painful) analogy of our Christian walk, I don't know what is!

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Speaking of good health...be sure to check out my sister Janice's blog. She's running a series on Osteoporosis, and she did one post on Alli which should dissuade anyone from trying it. Do check it out at:
http://cookwellbewell.blogspot.com/

Use It or Lose It

File this one under "you don't appreciate what you've got until you lose it."

I graduated from physical therapy yesterday, but I'm still getting "it" back. The "it" in question was my ponytail, something I'd totally taken for granted until September 29 when I took at header at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport and smashed my shoulder to pieces.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the story, I had a plate and many, many screws put in before I could come home to Massachusetts. I've been in physical therapy since. That therapy has required enough pain that I would leave the session with a bright red face and teeth marks in my tongue.

I was declared "graduated" because I have become proficient enough in administering my own pain to progress at home. Two hours a day, I listen to sports talk radio and scream. Given that, in the time I've been doing this, the Red Sox have won the World Series and the Patriots are heading for the Super Bowl, you may rest assured that my screaming (and cursing) are because of the pain and not celebration--though in my case, one could argue they are synonymous.

When I came home from Dallas, I required neither a cast nor a sling because of the hardware in my arm. My arm, however, hung like a swollen, dead fish at my side. I could move my fingers but little else. My early goal in therapy was to be able to rest my arm on the table long enough to type. This took almost a month.

My ultimate goal in therapy is to get my ponytail back. I still cannot easily raise my left hand to the crown of my head, and I certainly struggle to hold it higher than my shoulder for the period of time it takes to pull my hair through a scrunchie. Today I bit the bullet (or would have, if I had one), bent my face to my lap, and tried my best to get a ponytail in. As you can see by my self-portrait, I did it, though not without a couple of karate yelps.

Though my ponytail is far from perfect, I got what I wanted.

God, being ever so much wiser, may desire something else.

Earlier in the day, I had knelt at the door for a moment of prayer. I began to sing and, as with so many songs, needed to lift my hands. My right arm shot up but my left arm creaked and chugged its way heavenward, pain surging as I stretched and stretched. And I was struck by two thoughts.

The first is...you don't appreciate what you've got until you lose it. Before my accident, I wouldn't have thought twice about raising my arms--though perhaps more too often to cheer the Sox than to cheer our God.

The other thought is this: how often do I take the privilege of prayer and worship for granted? If it is too often, then stretching heavenward will become painful, perhaps to the point of almost impossible.

Use it or lose it.

Meet George, Valerie Comer's Charmer of a Cat

I continue to be astounded at these clever and loving cats we're meeting. I'm also a bit irked since I have the only unredeemable cat in the group -- but I'm enjoying all the cyber cuddles. Please welcome Valerie Comer and her cat George.

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George, aka Fur Face, is almost 13 and looks like a Himalayan. His actual lineage is purebred Alley Cat. He was born behind my sister-in-law's couch and dubbed George by her toddlers, who dragged him around by his hind legs and tortured him. This actually made him into quite a tolerant cat. My kids, much older than their wee cousins, weren't too sure about the new kitten's name when he moved to our house, but they decided that rather than Curious George he was the George of Warner Brothers fame, where Marvin the Martian squishily hugs Bugs Bunny and says: "I will hug him and love him and call him George, and he will be my best friend forever and ever."

The most annoying thing about George is that he isn't as attached to his hair as I'd like him to be.
But astounding? Yes, in several ways. We've had open stairs for much of George's life. His favorite game involves touch-and-go tag on the stairs. There are so many directions we can tag him from but he does a superb job of defending all angles. He rarely plays with claws out unless he has given plenty of warning that he no longer finds the game amusing.

The most amazing thing is that he acknowledges his name every single time it is uttered. If he is asleep (on the chair that folks notice does not contain the permanent indentations of any human bottom) his ears will twitch. After speaking to him a few times he will open his eyes and look at me as if to say, yes? What is it this time? The funniest aspect of that is every time my husband calls him, the cat comes running. In the past few months, Jim has been training George to come when he snaps his fingers. I can still scarcely believe that any self-respecting cat would leap to attention when summoned, but the evidence plays itself out for me often!

There is nothing in life that compares to a snuggling, purring cat. Babies grow up, but the kitten remains inside the cat. This Christmas is the first year that George hasn't removed an ornament to play soccer with at least once, so maybe he is growing up at last. He is nearly always ready to snuggle if I need it and makes sure I have something to laugh at every day.

The main life lesson that my cat teaches me is how little it takes to be content. His life is full and complete with a roof over his head, food and water, a litter box, and someone to tickle his tummy. He can play for hours with the simplest of toys; the plastic tab off a milk jug is one of his favorites.

We people get so busy with Important Things that we often forget to count the blessings that God has given us. We fret over what happened yesterday or might happen tomorrow. George, however, is secure just being a cat and living in the present. He trusts us completely to fill his water and food dishes, to scoop his litter, and to come home from work to play with him. Why do we agitate so needlessly in our own lives? Why can we not rest in the assurance that the God who made us loves us and will care for us?

Valerie Comer

The Little Worlds of Valerie Comer

In My Little World [at] Blogspot

Jack Be Nimble

Our friend, "Accidental Poet", has been gracious enough to introduce me to her pre-born nephew, Jack. Jack's got a few months to go in the womb and is growing well. Unfortunately, a tumor on his back is growing equally as well.

Jack's life will be an adventure and a blessing, and is worthy of walking alongside (with our dogs) and sharing our prayers. I am convinced he will one day frolic with his own puppy, and thanks to many prayers and the Internet, we'll be jumping for joy with him.

I invited you to meet Jack at his mother's blog http://www.graciousgiftofgod.blogspot.com/. Scroll to the first entry for his story, and be captivated by this young soul.

Next up in Cat Month: Valerie Comer's kitty George.

Marj and the "Redeemed" Anastasia

Today we welcome Marj, and Maddie's...well, they aren't exactly friend's so we'll say...Maddie's "acquaintance."

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This is Anastasia. We acquired her a year ago October. Anastasia was a stray, found by my boss's friend Dan as she was nursing four kittens under a hollow in a rock wall. Although she was pathetically thin (starved, really), she was clean and friendly with an air of elegance about her. That's how she came to be called Anastasia - she was a sort of an aristocrat living in reduced circumstances.

After the kittens were weaned and placed, we brought her home, and took her for shots and to be spayed. The vet said she was only about a year and a half old, and apparently had had a family at some point, since she was so comfortable with people. They probably tossed her out when they found she was pregnant.

She's a funny little thing. Although she's friendly, she isn't very affectionate - well, not cuddly, anyway. She follows me everywhere, insists on being as physically close as she can be, as long as I don't try to hold her. Sometimes, when she's feeling particularly mellow, she may allow herself to be held for 4 or even up to 6 seconds as a time - but no more. She likes to sit on my lap, but there is to be no cuddling. Absolutely - no cuddling.

There are things that she didn't know how to do when we got her - like opening doors. Most cats will work away at the side of a door with their paws until it opens enough to get through. Not this one. At first, she would wait and mew until somebody opened it. Then she started to watch us - and took to standing on her hind legs and trying to turn the knob with her front paws. I'm afraid it wasn't very successful. She finally got the hang of doing it in the usual cat way, but it took months.

There's another thing she wasn't up to speed on right away. Early last spring I discovered why she was so scrawny when we got her - she can't hunt. I learned this after she came to get me one morning to show me something. We were both perplexed by the presence of a large, bright green, live frog in the living room. Anastasia would oh, so tentatively, give it a gentle poke with her paw, and it would hop up and away, and she would hop back, and then forward, and so it went. She was interested enough to go after it (slowly) but didn't have the least idea what to do next. So I scooped it up and plopped it outside.

Many months later I woke up in the middle at night to use the bathroom, and there, laid neatly next to the toilet, was a little dead mouse. "By gum", I thought, "she's finally figured it out." Then I went back to bed, being unwilling dispose of the unfortunate beast at that hour. Anastasia beat me to it, anyway. My husband found the back half of that mouse at the bottom of the stairs when he got up.

Later it occured to me that really, it was very nice of her to give me her mouse. It must have represented quite an accomplishment to her (I'm not just anthropomorphising - she was positively preening all next day), and it was quite touching to think that instead of immediately consuming the fruit of her labor, she was willing to give it to me. And then I felt ashamed, because my odd little cat knows more than I do about how to show love and appreciation to her master.

It isn't easy to give your first-fruits to God. It's much easier to rationalize - "I need this", "I worked hard for this", "I deserve this". But what better way to demonstrate the depth of your attachment than to give away, with no guarantee of getting it back, the things that mean the most.

It's even better than cuddling.

Oh, What a Mess!

The forester has expanded his operation, now cutting trees along the main path. It's not the cutting that is the issue for we dog-walkers, it's the heavy equipment that is turning the path into a pitted, treacherous ditch, and it is the debris that he scatters behind as he strips the trees of branches and drags off the main trunk.

Not my woods, I tell myself. Yet they are so much a part of the fabric of my heart, the mess is distressing. Strangely enough, though he's cutting and hauling out so many huge, ancient trees, the forest is still populated with many more that will--as he promised, and I know to be true--grow taller and straighter because of the foresting.

What I hate is the demolishment of paths that have clearly been around for decades, maybe a century or more.

There is a certain grace to an old path, with its finely trod ground and exposed roots, a sense of history that many others walked these paths, eyes on the trees and stone walls and sky, perhaps snatching that moment of praise and letting it go to the One to whom it belongs.

Walking is now a horror show. It doesn't show well with the snow but the path has become partially a deep ditch (from the heavy equipment) and partially a slick track (from the trees being dragged.) On top of that peril are branches and sticks everywhere that you has to pick around, often time obscured by snow. It's hard to go off the path because the forester piles the branches there, a wall of wood and pine needles.

Marj walked Maddie here yesterday and remarked that, the problem with having to watch ones feet to pick one's way through such destruction is that one loses sight of the beauty all around. I like to think that I am wise enough to stop and take that moment before I trudge on, but my impulse is always to just rush forward and put this all behind me. I want to get into the woods beyond the forested property, where nothing has changed.

Yet this morning, when I did stop, I had to struggle to look past the mess at my feet, the mountain of tree branches at the side of the path, the trees that have been downed simply by collateral damage (a bigger tree falling on them). Looking in the long view, I saw a new woods with plenty of trees but more sky, more expanse in which to praise the Lord who made this all.

And isn't that the view I need to take when God is foresting my life, and leaving a mess in my path? Not my woods--and not my life--I need to remember.

Next up for Cat Month: Marj and her aristocratic Anastasia.

Sharon Dunn and her "Crazy" Kitties

I am a crazy cat lady. Cats are in almost all my books. I have a cat who is an affliction when she first arrived her name was TinkerBell. We now call her Craziness.

Anyway, the two cats I want to talk about are Buzzsaw and Big Rat. Buzzsaw and Big Rat came to us after much prayer. My daughter had lost her sweet calico Cozette and I wanted some healing and grief to happen before we got new cats.

We prayed for "just right kitties." I wanted short haired sisters. Short hair because I am tired of hair balls. Sisters because I thought two of them would keep each other company and be able to stand up to our Evil Queen Cat, Craziness.

God gave us exactly what we prayed for. Buzzsaw (so named because she started to purr loudly when my son picked her up in the shelter) sleeps on my son's head. She has an issue with being able to find the litter box, but she loves my son.

Big Rat is my daughter's cat, the cat who brought some closure after we lost the little calico.
The sisters play together and lick each other. I often find them, one using the other for a pillow, sleeping in front of the space heater. Cats are after all, heat seeking missiles.

Just as a note, these cats, like all of our cats have evolving names because cats don't call when you call them. They came from the shelter as Cashmira and Pewter. When the potty challenged one has one of her accidents, my hubby calls her Stupidhead.

My recent releases is book two in the Bargain Hunters mysteries, Death of a Six Foot Teddy Bear features Phoebe, the monster cat as a character.

http://www.sharondunnbooks.com/humorous whodunits, including book two in the Bargain Hunters mysteries
I blog twice a month at http://www.faithchick.com/.
Death of a Six-foot Teddy Bearfrom Multnomah Publishers, a division of Random House