Learning to be grateful!

It was time to take Trygve for a walk. We entered the 15th floor elevator. Two floors later it stopped and a man in a motorized wheel chair swept in, spinning his wheel chair in a circle, he stopped facing the door. "It's nice you can turn on a dime" I said and he agreed.  Why is he in a wheelchair and I have good legs, hips and knees? No answer comes to me, except to be grateful. Then I open my Christian Century, October 9, 2019, P. 22, and read the essay below. This essay was submitted in response to the Century's invitation to write about "dirt". 

"For years, I wished every spring that I’d planted daffodils the previous autumn so I could reproduce William Wordsworth’s vision: “A host, of golden daffodils; / Beside the lake, beneath the trees, / Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.”

I happened to be walking through a garden store one Saturday morning in October when I saw a cardboard bin full of bags of daffodil bulbs—50 bulbs to a bag. I was ecstatic! I bought two bags and couldn’t wait to get home to plant them.

I spent the rest of the day trying to dig four-inch holes for the bulbs. Our dirt is very hard, clay-like, and dry. I rely on a cane to keep me upright because of a stroke, and I found that working with my cane in one hand and a spade in the other was very difficult.

At dusk that day, I attempted to soften the soil by pouring water on a certain plot. Then I turned to set the hose aside, and my cane slipped in the mud. I spun around and fell backward into a big mud puddle. For a moment I lay there stunned, my limbs and head splayed out.

I began to move to see if anything was broken. I seemed to be intact, but my stiff and arthritic limbs felt useless as I lay there. I felt like a large Kafkaesque dung beetle, tossed on its back in the mud, arms and feet limply flailing the air, perfectly ineffectual.

I knew I needed to turn over and get my feet under me. The mud was slick, and I struggled to get traction. After several tries, I was able to dig one elbow into solid dirt beneath the mud so that I could turn over. My shoulders flipped quickly, and my face bobbed once in the mud. I snorted and blew wet dirt and was able to hold my head up. From there, I worked to get onto my knees. Successful with that maneuver, I rested there, suddenly surprised to find myself in a prayer position.

Kneeling in that thick mud, surrounded by gathering darkness, I prayed: “Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord” (Ps. 130:1). I suddenly felt a living connection with the psalmist, whose desperate cry was the perfect expression of my own muddy lips. God was not lurking and laughing in the distant shadows at the edge of the yard. His warm love welled up in my chest. Astonished, I rested there for several minutes, grateful—so profoundly grateful—for the presence of God in my life.

At length I noticed a chill in the autumn air, so I begged God to help me get up fully. I felt around in the mud for my cane. With great effort, leaning on my cane with both hands, I was able to get my feet under me, then straighten up.

Later a dear friend of the family came and planted the bulbs for me. And I was delighted that almost all of them grew in the spring. I was at last able to walk among “a crowd, / a host, of golden daffodils.”'

Don Simpson
Colorado Springs, Colorado

Lord, give me a grateful heart!

Takk for alt

Al

Comm