The ‘alleluia moments’

Happy Autumn! This is 1709 Sunset St., an’ I’m so grateful to let you readers know we’ve caught the alleluia moments pouring down on us! They’re flitting around here like these colorful leaves God sent to brighten the autumn landscape before He whitewashes it with snow.

They’re here inside my happy home too. I experience one each time I return from a few hours of rehabilitation therapy for my injured back, knowing I’m better than I was the day before. I can feel strength building and pain lessening.

My body and mind realize my confidence in doing all that I do while always being safe is strengthening. Muscles throughout my body are strengthening. As they do, they’re building into my mind and limbs an increasing confidence that I can continue to move steadily and safely. My stamina continues to recover and increase the same way, for the same reasons.

I give God, wonderful doctors and therapists the glory. My gut knows the life-giving root of my levels of assurance, joy and energy are stretching this old 1945-model human body, which my same-model human brain is charged with inspiring, directing and accelerating to the optimal level each moment. Distilled down, that viable force is nothing but God and His provision for me, provided to me heartbeat by heartbeat.

That’s a miracle — as everything God does truly is. I experience a miracle of healing as I sleep, as I take therapy and work on the exercises I’m given, and as I eat and drink the best things in right amounts and take the medications my doctor prescribes for me. Once each of those factors has participated just long enough, at just the right level, I’ll be “recovered.” My heart rejoices in God’s goodness, provision and assurance, which encourages me to be faithful to each “best thing” I’m working toward.

Then there’s environment, which I believe has a lot to do with whether or not we heal, recover, improve or grow better in any way. My environment includes the spaces I occupy — what surrounds me, what kinds of boundaries either hinder or enable me, what shares those spaces and boundaries, and who sets and oversees those boundaries.

Oh, did you hear those little echoes, rebounding off the walls after I read those last seven words out loud as I typed them?

I hear them, voices crying, “I help! I’m healthy and will make her better!”    

“No, I’m better at that!”

“Never, never, never, you show no restraint!”

“Maybe so. But you show too much restraint!”

“Hardly, but you couldn’t know, since you allow no one to restrain you!”

My mind knows how to put each of them in their places. Observe brilliance in operation, shh. “It’s obvious neither of you know much of anything,” I reprimand the dog and cat who have so rudely interrupted my thoughts to voice their opinions. “The best healing influences upon my mind and hence my body are the activities I participate in which I enjoy most. Of course I’m the only one who understands or even knows about that, right?”

At that the cat and dog clamor for a hearing, bumping into each other as they struggle to take the floor. Both are confident and smiling, one purring and the other wagging that tail. Both know I’m always more attentive to them than most other creatures or things.

Both also know (although they’re too polite to say it out loud) that those other “voices” I have those silly conversations which do not really exist but are rather figments of my imagination — which the cat and dog also understand are another side effect of spending too much time alone, and the unfortunate fact that I can’t hear all that they try so hard to tell me each time we’re holding one of these conversations.

I press forward with the dog and cat by quickly asking, “So, take the floor and answer me, what factors do you consider most important to my rapid and total healing?”

“Playing dominoes with your friends all Tuesday afternoon!” both respond. I’m weeping at their depth of wisdom as they say in unison, “And playing cribbage with your friends all Wednesday morning!”

Dumbfounded, I struggle to formulate a response, but they exchange one more lightning glance and proclaim in unison, “And going to every entertaining, educational or social event that comes along. Plus, like last Sunday with family and friends you love, at the same senior center where you play dominoes and cribbage, eating all the foods you love most.”

Dropping to the couch I beckon them, one to each side. With a hand on each head, I praise them, “My two best friends are naturally the only ones who observe me closely enough to know everything that is most essential to my healing.”

Wriggling closer, one blesses me with soft purring and the rubbing of a face against my arm, while the other sneaks a quick, loving lick along the back of my hand. Four eyes swallow me in pools of love — and I feel almost totally healed!

Thank you God, for Thanksgiving and all the alleluia moments of daily life in marvelous Newcastle, Wyoming!