I’m not always the sharpest tool in the shed.  Occasionally, I forget that I am no longer twelve, and somehow think that I can demonstrate to my children how to climb a rope.  After all, it was the easiest thing in the world when I was a kid.  Now, though?  Apparently, when my feet slip and my full weight is suddenly pulling on my arms, I am only then hit by the obvious realization – um…I can’t do this anymore.  Thankfully, having only gotten a few feet off the ground (I know, it’s sad), I didn’t fall or anything.  But my right shoulder hurt.  By the end of that day, two days ago, I realized that I couldn’t lift or extend it without horrible pain.  Through Tim’s own past experience and a quick look online, it was determined with a fair level of certainty that I have some sort of rotator cuff injury, with the best remedy being ice and rest.

So, here I sit.  I can’t cook, or drive, or make my bed, or pull weeds, or paint our screen doors, or [easily] pick up my little girls.  A friend had a baby yesterday evening and I went over to help out afterward only to discover that there was little I could actually do given my current…uh…disability.  I am realizing how very not ambidextrous I am, how many seemingly simple actions require a lifted or extended arm, and how much I actually can’t stand doing nothing.

Tim alternates between laughing at how I managed to injure myself, and scolding me if I use my arm even a little.  The reality is that the longer this takes to get better, the longer he and our kids have to pick up my slack.  As it is, we feel perpetually behind on lots of fronts, and a silly thing like this can be incredibly discouraging.

In moments like this, I always feel like God is trying to impress upon me the necessity of having a different perspective.  Life has hard stops sometimes.  Like it or not, things happen that we can’t change or make better quicker or somehow cause to work for our advantage.  But God isn’t sidelined when we are, and we have to be careful – I have to be careful – to not assume that this life, that is in His hands, will be undone because things aren’t going according to our plan.  Regardless of how many things seem to fall to the wayside, or how many times we find ourselves overwhelmed by the mountain of projects, or how often it might seem like nothing ever goes the way we need it to go, we can cling to His faithfulness, His goodness, His sovereignty over our days.  And even if a lifetime passes and some things have never gotten done, He is doing a good work in us that He will complete.  That’s so much more important.