Why Can't I…?

   This past Sunday morning, on my way to church, I turned my car out onto the main road and headed south. On the east side of the street, I noticed a woman jogging down the bike path. My first thought was, "Man, I used to do that all the time and really enjoyed the feeling I got from that activity".

   Then my thoughts became, "I sure wish I could still do that."

   Almost immediately my thought turned to "Don't let your mind dwell on the things that you can't do anymore, after all look at your age, consider the things that you can still do".

   For the rest of my drive to church, I mentally tried to list the many things that were still in my ability to do. I thought of things I had personally seen over the past few days, activities that others could not do anymore.

   The ability to read

   The ability to walk

   The ability to talk

   The ability to think

   When I got to the service that morning, I even wrote in the margin of my bulletin, the phrase "not what I cannot do, but what I can".

   Each morning this week, as I have awakened and got up, that thought has been there. As I have walked in the cool of the new day, it was there.

   Even this morning, as I walked in our old neighborhood, as I passed a house with a pickup truck parked in the drive, I thought of the lady who lived there, a lady I did not know, but knew about. That truck was a symbol of her late husband, a man who had recently passed away. There are a lot of things she cannot do anymore, with him.

   Psalm 31:15 states:

   "My times are in your hands"

   Ecclesiastes 3 is full of verses on times:

   "a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to …

    a time to …"

   Bemoaning what I can't do is not the way to go. It is like the slogging through a muddy swamp.

   God help me to celebrate what I can do, and to redeem the times that are left in my life with a care for others and service for You.

   After all, My life (and my circumstances) are in Your hand.

   Another sunrise signals a new time to …

   And I am grateful and challenged at the same time.