Saturday, January 8, 2011

Being His hands and feet ...

It has been SO amazingly beautiful the last few days ~ what is prettier than snow-on-snow, the January days of Grand Rapids? Yesterday, the snowflakes were so HUGE it made you feel you were living in a snow globe! I love clean fresh snow. I love the quiet and the peace that it brings.

However, my days have been quite the opposite of that. I have been giving care for Nana and Roy due to mom's bad tailbone break. We were finally able to get an appointment with her primary care physician (this is a brand new physician for Nana). The appointment went well. Nana hit it off with the doctor, and we received lots of valuable information there. It turns out that the CT scan of her tailbone revealed not only a fracture, but kind of a shattering of the bone. It's not displaced and there are not loose fragments, but it is quite a nasty break.

But now that we have seen the primary care physician, all kinds of other professional help is available to us. We met with a gentleman from St. Mary's Home Health Care, physical therapy, this morning. He came out to Nana and Roy's and stayed more than two hours. He gave us lots of helpful information and instructed us on how to better take care of Nana. Occupational therapy will be calling to make appointments at the house next week as well.

I was really really exhausted yesterday and my attitude was less than it should have been. I felt grumpy and cranky and almost beside myself with fatigue, emotionally and physically. I e-mailed some close friends last night and asked for prayer for all of us ~ and today was so much brighter.

Last night as I was lying in bed I was reminded of what Jesus taught his best friends about serving people. It was the night he washed their feet. After he was finished, this is what he said to them: "And since I, the Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other's feet. I have given you an example to follow. Do as I have done to you ... this is the path of blessing." (John 13:14-16).

I have known Jesus as my King and Savior for a very long time. But only a few times have I ever felt like I was "His hands and His feet." I often feel that way when I am in El Paso with my little grandchildren there ... because I serve them and when I meet their little friends and give them hugs ~ I know that when I do, Jesus is hugging them through me. Today, as I helped Nana and Roy around the house, with daily activities that they struggle with now, I had a real sense of the Lord's presence with me ... and I was very thankful I could serve Him this way.

Tomorrow, my sister and husband are coming to town and they are going to give me a few days of relief. Grandpa Jones has his surgery on Monday and needs monitoring for 24 hours afterward, so I am thankful that Ruthanne will be in town to check on and care for Nana and Roy.

We would all appreciate your continued prayers.

3 comments:

judy hand said...

Carol, you have my prayers. I feel
that way with that El Paso gang too,
even when they were the G.R.
My thoughts and prayers for Roy and
your mom, too.

loisgroat said...

Praying for you all.

Sabrina said...

I'm still praying for you mom! Good luck with the surgeries today with dad!