Some days just start off better than others, don't they? Some mornings, I wake up feeling rested, the dogs run right outside and do their business and come right back in, I have a good hair day, enjoy my breakfast, have time to check my email, traffic is light and I get to work a little early ... some days just begin better than others. Then there are the mornings that begin with really low blood sugar, the dogs take their sweet time outside, I'm exhausted because I've tossed and turned all night, I'm already late when I walk out the door and then it pours down rain and I sit in traffic forever ... days when I wish I would have stayed in bed. Or days like today ... when I had to get up extra early so that I could make it to my first 6:45 physical therapy appointment. Yep, I said 6:45 ... which meant I had to haul myself out of bed at 5:15. Not the grooviest way to start a Tuesday for sure.
I've never had to do physical therapy before, and I'm pretty sure that when I'm finished with the process on my shoulder, I'll never do it again. In fact, I think it should be called physical torture rather than therapy ... I had no idea what the therapist was going to do to me, and I'm already dreading going back next week. I'm also not looking forward to performing the exercises she instructed me to do each day until I return ... not once a day, mind you, but twice every single day. She kept saying that the mantra "no pain, no gain" didn't apply in my case and to only stretch until I felt pain. I didn't have the heart to tell the sweet little gal that I have pain in my shoulder with every movement.
She began my appointment with asking me a bunch of questions and then having me perform a list of tasks to determine my range of motion, using some funky little device to measure each different twist and turn. She started with my left arm, and I arrogantly said, "Well, this is a walk in the park," and proceeded to demonstrate just how far I could reach and how strong I was ... and then ... she instructed me to accomplish the same maneuvers with my right arm. My arrogance and strength quickly dissolved into grimaces of pain and weakness as I made a feeble attempt to do as she asked with my aching right shoulder and arm. Typing measurements and notes into her laptop, she said, "You certainly have a very limited range of motion with your right arm ... I can't believe you've lived with that level of pain for this long." After going through all the exercises she wants me to work on until my next appointment, she told me to lay down on the exam table and she wrapped my shoulder in a huge ice blanket ... and that icy cold blanket, my friends ... ahhh ... that blanket felt like heaven had come down and landed right on top of my old wounded wing.
I couldn't help but think about her range of motion comments as I left the rehab center and got into my car to drive to work. A very limited range of motion, I mused, as I merged onto the interstate and headed toward downtown. That young gal has no idea how true that is, I thought to myself, and not just in regard to my shoulder. My range of motion concerning life in general has become very limited over the last months ... and for all my trying and all my pondering about it, I can't determine why I feel the way I do. At a time in my life when I should be free to go wherever I desire or do whatever I want or most certainly to be myself, I feel grounded, trapped and confined. My kids are all out of the house and self-sufficient ... I should be having the time of my life and doing all the things I promised myself I would do when they were all grown and on their own. And yet ... and yet, my range of motion is very limited.
Sometimes I think God allows a lot of traffic on my drives to and from work so that He can speak to me while I'm alone in the car, and tonight's drive home was extra slow. All day the words "limited range of motion" have been swirling in my brain, and I've been trying to figure out just what God was trying to teach me through the therapist's words from this morning. As the cars slowed to a complete stop this evening, a thought jumped into my mind ... my motion in life is limited because I'm afraid to step out in faith and trust where God wants to take me. Whoa, I mused ... wonder where that thought came from ... I wonder indeed.
Limited range of motion ... speak to me, Lord ... lead me, Lord ... take me, Lord.
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