“Our once great western Christian civilization is dying. If this matters to followers of Jesus Christ, then we must set aside our denominational differences and work together to strengthen the things that remain and reclaim what has been lost. Evangelicals and Catholics must stand together to re-establish that former Christian culture and moral consensus. We have the numbers and the organization but the question is this: Do we have the will to win this present spiritual battle for Jesus Christ against secularism? Will we prayerfully and cooperatively work toward a new Christian spiritual revival ― or will we choose to hunker down in our churches and denominationalisms and watch everything sink into the spiritual and moral abyss of a New Dark Age?” - Mark Davis Pickup

Wednesday, March 23, 2022

TO WALK OR NOT TO WALK: THAT IS NOT THE QUESTION. I'M BACK IN MY WHEELCHAIR


 

I have contracted COVID. It has effected my lungs — that's to be expected — but it has also raised havoc with my multiple sclerosis (MS). My legs are so weak and spastic again that I can't walk. I'm back in my wheelchair. It is emotionally difficult to go back in it. But then I remember my prayer in 2018, before Christ in the Blessed Sacrament: "Lord, if it is possible could you let me walk again, even for a short time, even with a cane(s) or a walker." 

I had been in an electric wheelchair for so many, many years—I wanted to feel what it was like to walk again, to use my right arm and hand and hand-write love letters to my wife LaRee again before the end of my life. I wanted to dance a slow dance with her. We did that, dancing in our living room one cold Canadian winter night. Two life-long lovers slowly moving in the low light of flickering embers of a dying fire in our fireplace. Our bodies moved to the gentle rhythm of her favourite love song. It was the last song that we danced to many decades ago before the cold bars of crutches, wheelchairs and leg braces put an end to it. LaRee is once, twice, three times a lady to me, even if we come to the end of our rainbow.

I've written love letters to LaRee every day since I got the use of my arm and hand back in 2018. She has dairies full of them.

God granted my prayer. I regained the use of my arm and hand and walked from 2018-now. It was longer than I expected. Was it a miracle or a sign that God has always been in control? What happens to me is for my own spiritual good. 

Hopefully when COVID passes, I will get back the use of my legs. If not, and I must remain in the wheelchair, I will still praise God for letting me walk again, for giving me back the use of my arm and hand, for being with me throughout 38 years of aggressive and terrifying MS. 

I will one day understand Why?

"For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know  just as I am known. And now abide in faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love." -- 1Corinthians 13:12-13. 

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Praying for your complete recovery, Mark. God bless you and LaRee.

Jo Tolck

Unknown said...

Hi Mark. You are such a beautiful soul and very gifted writer.
Hope that you will get your writings published before your time to sing with the angels. We too are looking to the golden years. I will be 80 years old and Ed will be 82 in the fall. I am so glad of the number of years he gave you to express your love for each other in that refreshing and beautiful mist of the great falls of God's grace. Keep writing and leaving your Legacy. As they say, "it ain't over till the fat lady sings" lol
Nan Weber
Holy Family Ministry Center/Loreto on the Plains PCh, the Respect Life Care Home in Hartley Tx.

Mark Davis Pickup said...

Thank you Nan, for the kind but undeserved words.