Pity and Sorrow

Don't worry - I am not going to elicit pity from anyone. I am just sitting here in a dark house at my parent's - who are in bed at 9:00.

My mom struggled this week. She had no energy - her legs hurt really bad and nothing seems to help. It hurts her to try to walk,and she finds herself getting stuck walking, thinking she cannot go on.

For the very first time since her stroke of last July, she expressed how difficult every day life is. Getting dressed and undressed, going to the bathroom, brushing her teeth, taking a shower, speaking, and sleeping while not being able to toss and turn are a few things she deals with daily. She needs to be doing exercises every day and finds that she is not motivated on her own. (wow - me too!)

I wanted to sob at the hardship she has been handed - and how hard it is for my dad to be the caregiver each day (although he will have it no other way) I want things to be the way they were last June when my mom and I went to Women of Faith conference a week before her stroke and had the most amazingly blessed time.

Then~ I think of my friend Pam...whose mother has a deteriorating brain disease and they cannot even communicate anymore. How horrible to go from skiing with your mom each year, to finding her sitting out in the cold with soiled pajamas on.

These are the trials in life that produce perseverance if we allow them to. Nobody chooses these physical ailments, yet they are freely dispersed in life, seemingly with no partiality.

The pity that remains in my soul for others is for those who have no choice. No one chooses a stroke, or a debilitating brain disease, or any other physical ailments. These are the people we may pity.

On the other hand, those who choose to rebel against God and find themselves in a miserable life - I have no pity for them other than they are apart from God and live only for themselves. Their consequences could have been avoided by a mere choice. My mom could not have chosen not to have a stroke.