Another Year is Nearly Gone!

I never cease to be amazed at how much more quickly time flies the older I get. Through a year of varied degrees of battle, mostly with my stinkin' flesh, I am yet again praying that God will reign. The mundane little details of our life now that our son (now age 24) is a paraplegic and a brain injury has caught me up short so often. I catch myself functioning in a bizarre routine of caring for an adult child who cannot walk, cannot control his bowel or bladder, cannot process thoughts like he did before his accident. I try so hard to thank God he is still living but when the laundry is piling up and there is an incessant flow of needs to be met, I struggle. My life has dramatically changed. There are no more opportunities to sit at his bedside and worship like I did when he was in his coma and hospitalized. We have hit a place where we see very little improvement and he is not in a position to afford the daily rehabilitation he once got.

Am I complaining? Yes. Am I grumbling? Yes. Do I find thankfulness a chore? Yes. Will things ever be what they were? No.

I don't like being in the doldrums -- so Thank God! Another year is nearly gone. As I reflected on the passage of time this morning (Christmas Day), I finally grabbed ahold of a reason to rejoice - silly, you say? It's not the fact that this is the day we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, coming as a baby to save His people from their sin. It isn't because the close of this year brings me even closer to going home to heaven, although that is a sweet thought, isn't it? It is because I have been given the gift of another year gone -- a year of learning, growing, stretching, reaching -- and another year of precious memories to hold tightly to with the birth of a new grandson and all of my children still living close by, one daughter even closer than she was. It is also because, with that gift of another year gone, I also received another year AHEAD!

I am determined (with teeth gritted and heels dug in) not to let go of Jesus as casually as I did this past year. Though there are very few things in my life I have a choice about, I do have a choice about what kind of heart attitude I will seek. I have a choice -- not to complain and grumble. I have a choice -- I can be thankful. And on this day of amazing possibilities, I want to grab on to those even when I grab onto the back of my son's wheelchair and push!