WORK―Perspective

“Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness.”  ~ Edward Stanley

So originally the last blog and this blog were ONE blog.  However, it was getting ridiculously long so I divided them into two parts. And rightly so!  This one has its own weight and merit.  While my previous one was focused on  GRACE...this one focuses on perspective in life.

Our need for grace certainly gives us perspective―that is the connection. 

But when it comes to perspective on what is important in life (in general), I can thank my lucky stars that I do what I do for a living.  It is almost impossible for me to forget what is the single most important thing in life!  OUR HEALTH!

I have been hurt recently.  Physically.  For the first time in a long time my health and livelihood was threatened with an injury to my right hand.  For someone that doesn’t get sick...someone who heals those who are hurt―but is never the one in need of healing―it was humbling to feel the fear that came with this injury.  What happens if I cannot write? If I cannot wash dishes?  If I can’t bathe myself, dress myself, open a jar for myself?  I help people learn how to work around these issues all day long.  I try to do it with patience and compassion.  But it has been a long time since I have been there myself. It was in 1993 when I dislocated my right thumb the fall of my senior year in high school to be exact.  But back then I lived at home with my parents.  I didn’t count on myself to provide for my independence like I do now.

This dominant hand injury has been a good reminder of how important one’s independence is.  We have no idea how important our health is until we lose it.

“I have a time limit.” 

A friend and colleague recently stated this realization as we discussed the patient from my last blog―the one who’s tithing check was laid out on her dresser.

Wow!  What a thought!  Do you live your life with full knowledge of this awareness?

I absolutely HATED (during my second rotation as a PT student at a hospital in Columbia) that when a patient died I would be notified of this event by walking into work and seeing a big red line crossed through their name with the word “expired” tagged to the end of it.  Expired? Really?  

Milk expires.  NOT people.

People die.  And when they do―there’s no “do over.”

These are PEOPLE. These are my patients.  These are the people who give me more by fighting to get better than I ever give them in my attempt to help them fight.  PEOPLE.  People who have lives...who have loved each other for over 50 years.  People who have sons and daughters and grandchildren.  They are fighting colon cancer, lung caner, pneumonia, and heart disease.  They have fallen and shattered their pelvis, their hip, or their arm.  They hurt and are struggling.  They will die too soon.  They will beat the odds and live two years longer than they were supposed to.  They will miss a grandchild’s wedding.  They will see a great-grandchild born.  They are veterans who fought for our country. They are teachers who taught in small town schools. They are ill and they are fighting.  They are ill and have given up.

I can’t change one bit of their fate, their genetics, or their family dynamics.

All that happens in our interactions when it comes down to it is this...I may teach them something that helps them get stronger, become more independent, or improve their quality of life.  I may give them a wheelchair, a walker, or a piece of advice that helps them in some way.  But they give me perspective on life―a far greater gift than I give them. I cannot ignore or push to the back burner what is important―what is truly  important.  NOW―is important.  Do it now!  There is a time limit on your life...and you are not the clock-keeper.

“I have a time limit.”

If that were tattooed on your head―backwards―so that you could read it every time you looked in the mirror―how differently would you live your life?

And guess what?  The fact that you have a time limit is as true as the sun coming up this day. Your days are numbered.  Your health is a gift.  Get busy.  And keep perspective.

I had a man (just this day) tell me he thought death was an easy process.  He has been close to death himself in the last two months―experiencing total organ failure.  He had lost his wife 4 months ago to cancer and spent the last few weeks of her life holding her hand before she died.  

“She never looked like it was hard.” He said.  “And I don’t remember ever being in pain or distress when they said I was so close to dying.”  “So I think dying must be easy.” 

I looked at this sweet little man and said, “Your wife was a woman of faith, wasn’t she?”  He said she was.  And I said, “I think that had a lot to do with what you saw.”

I explained that I had seen a fair amount of people die at this point in my life.  Mostly in the skilled nursing unit of Bishop Gadsden in Charleston.  It hadn’t always been a pretty or peaceful process.  Sometimes it had been...sometimes not.  But what I have learned is this...

1. Much like seeing a baby be born―it is the same privilege to be present when a soul enters this world as when it exits this world.
2. It should not shock us that the physical process of dying (much like birth) is traumatic for the body.
3. It is the same miracle to die as it is to be born.

God brings us in.  And he takes us out.  I have been there for both.  And both have moved me to tears.  I think the dying more so than the birth in its finality.

There is nothing more final than death.  And there isn’t much more humbling of an experience to work with people who are close to doing it (dying) everyday. 

We have a time limit.  Ask someone who sick what is really important.  You will find out very quickly how small your “so called” problems are.

What is my point?  Death must be thought about constantly in order to live well.  The obligation of your ability to breathe and your heart to beat is to know that you have a time limit.  

Love. ―requires Grace.

"Graciousness has been defined to be the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul. Grace must find expression in life. Grace glides on blistered feet. Grace is the refinement of your soul through time."

Love requires Grace―what an understatement.  I absolutely love this quote and hate that I can’t find the author to give credit where it is due (if anyone knows please pass my way).  

I am acutely aware of one very hard fact to swallow right now.  When you love people (be it family, friends, or significant others), you inevitably hurt them and get hurt by them.  That will always be true.

I am clinging to the quote above as what to do when that “hurt” occurs.  The extension of grace is what allows us to get back to a place of peace.  We are supposed to ask for grace and be willing to extend it to others.  I am learning that this appears to be a process I have to do daily―like going to the gym―it must be maintained in order to get the desired results.  Hence the line about gliding “on blistered feet” and the mention of it being the “refinement of your soul” over time.  It is a process.

Grace is the connection factor of life.  It connects us to other important elements like forgiveness, love, loyalty, service, and selflessness.  The ability to extend or receive grace rolls in like a gentle fog when we get perspective on what is important in life. Both when we see our need for it AND when we see how extending it to others can heal us.  Grace must come for forgiveness to come―and both must come for healing to take place.

Grace (by definition) is the free and unmerited favor or beneficence of God.

Grace was manifested this week in moments of having “perspective on life” after having my finger crushed but my flexor tendon spared.  Moments that were followed by even more humbling demonstrations of real perspective when I walked into a patient’s house who had just received a diagnosis of bone cancer.  I saw the expression of her thankfulness for God’s grace when I noticed she had faithfully placed her tithing check on her dresser―like she always does.

I know these things to be true:  I am in need of grace.  I must continue to work on my ability to extend it to others.  And any ability to do so is not of me―but of God through me.  I know this last part to be true because I do not want to be gracious.  I would rather sit and rot in my bitterness than extend grace and forgiveness to someone that hurt me.  I didn’t used to be this way.  This is new for me―this festering.  

My patients cancer diagnosis hit my face like a bucket of cold water.

How can I be bitter?  I am still “in the game.”  I am healthy and I have a choice in this matter.

Maya Angelou once said, “Bitterness is like cancer.  It eats upon the host.  But anger is like fire.  It burns it all clean.”

And so there it is...the pathway laid out before me clear as day.  First of all, I am lucky enough to have love ones. I will hurt them and they will hurt me. When I am hurt, it’s okay to be angry―but I have to move on to grace and forgiveness.  If I don’t, the bitterness (or bone cancer) of life will eat away my peace.

And heaven knows―most of us need all the peace we can get.