HOPE endures all things

"Beth, how about this? First you have to be able to stand, not leaning."

... (time elapses) ...

"But I do squats now. I couldn't do those a month ago. I can lift my left foot. I couldn't do that a month ago."

"Well, they probably look like this ... those aren't real squats."

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That wasn't why I was there. But that was the end of things, a horrible end. I left, alone.

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I put my wheelchair in the car. An African American woman walking by on her way to the bus asked if she could help. I asked her to close the trunk. (That's hard for my shoulder still) She did. For those few seconds, I didn't feel alone.

I got in the car and backed out as one of the 2 people from the office came out and got into her Lexus. It's interesting. The person going to the bus helps. The person with the Lexus (not to generalize all people who own a Lexus) didn't think to ask, when I left, if I was ok.

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I wasn't ok. The appointment had been delayed. I got stuck in traffic. It was 90+ degrees outside. The AC inside the building wasn't quite going yet, so it was about 85 degrees. Things weren't looking good. I simply can't take heat. Combine heat and stress? Recipe for disaster.

Could I stand? No. Could I do squats? No.

But at home I can. And the squats - I do them correctly.

The 2 people might as well have laughed out loud. I was wasting their time.

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I drove home. I cried. I didn't know why. I picked up my daughter. I was really late. I wanted to crawl in a hole somewhere and be alone. But life continues - dinner, homework, piano, bedtime, late work to finish a writing. No hole. No time to think.

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Today I thought more... what happened?

In one minute, hope was taken. The potential of CAN was replaced by CAN'T. Looking back at life, I've been told CAN'T too many times, but I've turned CAN'T into CAN. And I think hope can help with that.

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It may be offensive, but flip some things:

1 Corinthians 13 (flipped)

13:1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not HOPE, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not HOPE, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, [1] but have not HOPE, I gain nothing.

4 HOPE is patient and kind; HOPE does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; [2] 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 HOPE bears all things, believes all things, (loves) all things, endures all things.

8 HOPE never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three...

And the passage says love is the greatest of the three. But as I go through life, I cannot continue without HOPE. So I'll go with faith, HOPE, and love being equally important. You need all three. I'm sure I'm missing something, but that's ok.

And I'll see where HOPE takes me. I think it keeps me going.

Peace.