Christmas Thanks from David

Heidi was good enough to give me a brief lesson on blogging so that I could post a message of my own for Christmas Day.

I want to take this opportunity to say "Thank You!" to the many people out there who have shown such incredible love and support to me and my family over the last 7 1/2 weeks. You have been so amazing! From visits, to cards, to phone calls, to prayers, to meals, to groceries, to loads of laundry, to pages on the prayer pager, to rides to school for our kids, to yard work, to lending a book, to flowers, to cookies, to encouraging scripture passages, to help with automotive issues, to following my progress on Heidi's Blog, I cannot thank you enough. I have felt so incredibly loved and supported by all of you.

Heidi has kept you updated on so many of the milestones of my progress over the weeks, now I would like to share one with you myself. Sunday morning as I was getting dressed for church, I was able to step into my pants without leaning on anything for support. That may seem like a strange thing to consider as a milestone, but you might be amazed by the many small things that I have taken for granted for so long, that have now become big goals on my road to healing. Balance has been a huge issue to relearn from the start, and it is so exciting to see it returning.

Monday was my last day of therapy at English Oaks. Part of occupational therapy was spent reassessing my progress. One of the tasks I was asked to perform was to balance on one foot, first on the right and then on the left. What an eye opener this was for me. Once again I was amazed at the things I have taken fore granted for so long. The only way to explain this is to have you try this task yourself. Will you take a moment to do this for me? Take off your shoe and try standing on one foot. Either one will do. As you balance there for 10 seconds or more, really pay attention to what is happening on the bottom of your foot. Can you feel the muscles on the left and the right working together to keep you from toppling over? Can you feel the toes sensing when they need to do their work of preventing you from going too far forward? Do you realize all of the messages that are automatically being transferred back and forth from foot to brain and back again to make this possible? Wow! Our feet do that automatically! Isn't that incredible? Right now, my right foot does all of these things very well, but I realized during my assessment, that my left foot has a long way to go yet. It pretty much tips from side to side as my body starts to tilt in one direction or another, but the bottom of my foot cannot fully sense all that is going on, and the muscles and toes don't quite know how or when to do their part. It is going to be exciting to see what kind of improvement may come as this foot continues to come back to life.

Well, what I really wanted to say through all of this is that we have an amazing God. He is the God of my foot and the God of the universe. He is the God who heals and the God who saves. On this Christmas day, I want to remind you that this God can not only make a paralysed man walk, but he can also forgive all of his sins. Celebrate God's goodness today in the gift of His son, Jesus. He is so deserving of our thanks!