My world is limited these days.  I haven’t been out of the house for two weeks except to go to the ER for a urinary tract infection.  Yeah!  So I sit here in this room…my throne room… surrounded by cards from well-wishers and flowers from loved ones.  There are bottles of medicine of all kinds right by my side so I can reach them.  A Willow Tree Angel of Good Health, arms full of apples, watches over my recliner from a nearby table.  My T.V. tray is covered with the remote, my cell phone, my cordless phone and my laptop.  What would I do without all that technology?  At meal time it takes me five minutes to clear the table to eat.  The incision torture machine is on the floor reminding me with gurgling noises that the tube that connects me to it is still flowing.  A special red heart declaring peace and shalom rests in constant view to remind me of the love of my mother and our shared pain.  The T.V. is on to show me what is happening around the world and to remind me that lives continue on while mine is standing still. This is my window, my view from the chair.  I am reclining, the only comfortable position, and thinking, watching and feeling everything around me.  I am napping much of the time and surfing the rest.  I cannot say it is fun here, but I am getting rest which is something I have had very little of the last few years…that is the bright side.  I am letting those around me take care of me.  I am treated like a queen in my throne room.

 I was reading in Mark 2 when Jesus healed the paralytic.  It is a great story about the crowds that came to watch and hear Jesus. In the parallel passage in Luke 5 it says “the power of the Lord was with him to heal the sick.”  The Pharisees came to check this out.  I guess they were worried.   It was so crowded people couldn’t get in to see him.  In the midst of this crowd along come some men carrying a paralytic.  They realized there was no getting through the crowd so they went up on the roof and lowered the man down right in front of Jesus.  You may already know this story, Jesus says “your sins are forgiven” then, after a discussion with the Pharisees he says “get up, take your mat, and go home.”  The man walks away…healed and God is praised. 

There is so much in this short passage but the thing that stood out to me was how incredible the friends were that took the man to the feet of Jesus.  They knew this man couldn’t get there on himself.  He was paralyzed, no walking, no moving on his own strength.  All he could do was let his friends carry him.  I bet you can see why this passage stands out to me at this particular time.  I am paralyzed.  A couple of weeks ago fear had me totally immobilized and now my physical condition has me stuck in this chair.  But I have friends that carry me.  They have great faith and they are not afraid to lower me down to the feet of Jesus because they know what he can do.  Crowds cannot stop their determined steps.  Pharisees will not hinder their requests to God.  They know the “power of the Lord is with him to heal.”  They are my hands and feet when I have nothing to raise me up.

 I can sit here on my mat and be treated like a queen knowing that my King is hearing their cries on my behalf.  I trust that mine sins can and will be forgiven just as the man in the story.  And I pray that he will hasten the day when he says get up, take up your mat and go home.  Right now I am on this mat watching all of my friends carry me and I am amazed.  I am humbled that they would go to this extreme for me.  Each one expresses God’s heart for me in his/her own unique way and with his/her own unique gifts.  I am loved.  I am carried.  Thank you my dear friends.