After a knee replacement, our friend, Mary, was in for her one-month appointment with her surgeon, Dr. V, where he brings her physical therapist, Chase, in to see how she’s been in therapy, and they line up the next month. Everything she does, (exercise, weights, ranges of motion) is documented on an I-Pad. Chase shares the data with Dr. V and together they give a full evaluation.
During the appointment Dr. V told Mary how great everything looked. He showed the X-ray of how tight and straight everything inside is, no more swelling, and complimented her on her work with Chase.
Then Dr. V turned to her wish list and said, “Well Mary, we’re 1/3 through our process — And the first third was the hardest third: major surgery and lots of pain. But we’re done with that. Your knee is fixed. But the next two-thirds are longer, and hence, mentally harder. Honestly, this is where a lot of people say, “enough”. But here’s the key Mary. The work you do in these next two-thirds will determine the quality of your life moving forward. You can simply start walking around to the extent that you want to walk the rest of your life or
you can build up strength for a totally different rest of your life.”
“So, when I look at your wish list, you look like you want a lot of life past this surgery, correct?”
She interrupted him and said, “I got an email from our friends who are planning a trip to Italy in October, what do you think about that?” He smiled and said, ‘October? Heck! Not a problem. You could handle that easily.” She smiled…
But her husband Kelly said yesterday she didn’t want to go to therapy. “She was fighting it, crying… I dropped her off, praying that the Lord would meet her. Two hours later I picked her up and she had the biggest smile on her face. She was totally energized. I said, “Well how was it? She said, “Oh Kelly. It was great. We had the best session.”
We were going through our exercises and we got about half way and Chase said, “Ok. get up. Off the table, let’s go!” I said, “Where are we going?”
He said, “We’re going to do some stairs!” I said, “STAIRS?!”
He said, “Yep, stairs”. I was freaking out; I wasn’t ready for that. I told him, “I don’t know, Chase.”
He said. “I do. And if you want to meet up with your friends in Italy, we’re going to be ready. Let’s go!” He held my hand and we did the first flight – four times. Forty stairs!”
Turning point!
Pushing through physical therapy and finding the motivation to persevere has taken everything in Mary and more. And wouldn’t you know it, our spiritual growth (soul therapy) has striking parallels: turning points that determine the quality of our spiritual life moving forward. Some people call it the “wall” where doubts, testing, questions and new paradigms arise and it’s easy to give in, stagnate, float or get bitter. Finding our way can be like intense wrestling and disillusionment, but if we endure with our Soul Therapist, we’ll see refreshing and deep transformation and a “totally different rest of our life”.
I think we’ll be seeing our friends in Italy!
“One way to define spiritual life is getting so tired and fed up with yourself you go on to something better, which is following Jesus.” Eugene Peterson
One thought on “Soul Turning Point”
This is tremendously encouraging to me today Jackie! Thank you so much! Ebenezer stood out to me this morning! But how do I want to end? What does it look like to end well? I think it has a lot to do with the first and second commandments and trusting God’s care in every area…3 Jn vs 2.