Stand with Others in Their Struggle -- Eternity is Waiting for All of Us

Now that you all are sick to death of the election, we can go back to discussing my frozen shoulder. Miracula, my massage therapist says that the tight and painful 'trigger points' in my upper body are dramatically less 'hot.'  She was able to work on my restricted muscles with a whole lot more pressure. "This is a huge improvement! Thank you Lord!" she said.

Then yesterday, I went to my Physical Therapist, Annie, who also noted that my range of motion is getting better! She even said to just go ahead and plan on kayaking as I had hoped over Thanksgiving week. We will be in Florida with my fun sister Amy, and for months, have been anticipating kayaking with the dolphin and manatees. My frozen shoulder threatened to put the kibosh on that dream.

"You mean you will release me to kayak if I am doing better by the time I leave for Florida?" I asked Annie.
"No. Go ahead and kayak. I am not going to stop you."
I smiled and stretched my arm a little higher. "I feel like maybe I will be cured one day!"
"Oh you will be," she said firmly with so much conviction, I believed her.

When someone believes in you, and stands with you in your struggles, it can make ALL the difference. It is why Cities4Life is on the sidewalks of the abortion centers. Sometimes, all a woman needs is to know she is not alone, someone who has walked a similar path is there to tell her she can do this. She can bear this child, she can change her life, she can make choices that will not sear her conscience and her relationship with God. With someone standing alongside us, we can often stretch a little higher than we thought we could.

My dramatic turn around on the pain level also illuminates a second very important point. Circumstances change. Sometimes suddenly. Never base your happiness or major decisions (like abortion, like harming others, like losing friends or family over political differences...) on the basis of present circumstances. They are a blip on the lifetime screen. Try to adopt the long-term view. Even better, develop a vision of the eternal view.

If I were able to look back on this choice for all eternity, will I be glad to recall it? If I truly believe in the reality of eternal life, is this choice one I need to or should make?

This morning, as I put on my warm up jacket, I paused in shock. My frozen arm had slipped painlessly into the right sleeve for the first time in months.
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Ecclesiastes 3:11

He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

Isaiah 57:15

For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.

John 14:2-3 

In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.

John 1:12 

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,