Penguin Wings

Last week I was thinking how I didn't seem to have any new developments to share here, and I was a little disheartened. I want to tell you all what great progress I'm making, but sometimes I go long stretches with no visible progress. And that's okay. Monday, a friend came over to have tea, and she shared an anecdote about a someone who was practicing lifting a weight with a single finger every day for weeks and couldn't ever get more than a dozen or so reps until one day he suddenly was able to get over thirty. We talked about how this fit with my recovery as I still have to faithfully go through the motions of my therapies and daily routine consistently hoping for more but occasionally stuck in a run of no improvements. 

"I'm ready for my breakthrough!" I joked with a different friend the next day. However, Helen had also shared with me on Monday the context for the anecdote was about how our God is not one to grant instant gratification. I don't get to demand results just because I'm ready for them. I still have to be faithful - even if that means wandering for forty years to get a glimpse of the Promised Land. With that in mind, I faithfully walked to school with Carol on Tuesday, and I put as little weight on my sticks as possible as we made our way down the slight incline to school. I managed a single step without any weight at all on the left stick. "Hey, look," I told Carol as I tried keeping the left stick in the air while I stepped with the right foot. I took a few more steps using the sticks before trying it again. It was a huge accomplishment to manage three steps total on the way to school keeping the stick in the air.

Wednesday I was walking with Crystal, and I thought I'd try it again. "Watch this," I said, and I took about a dozen steps keeping the left stick in the air the whole time. I had no idea I could go more than one consecutive step like that, and Crystal and I were both still speechless when I made it to my office. With that boost of confidence, I decided to try something one level harder - I left my wheelchair at home when I went to work. I met up with Hanna and Faith as I made my way to school, and I excitedly told them, "Check out what I can do," and started to walk keeping the left stick in the air, "One, two, three," I counted all the way up to ten steps on the left foot - I'm pretty sure nearly double the steps taken yesterday. I told them I'd tried just a few yesterday but hadn't counted.

I'd messaged my best friends back in the States last night to tell them this awesome news, and one replied, "I can just picture it! That stick dangling like an awkward penguin wing with no purpose." I love that image. I've got these mobility aids that are decreasing in necessity. I do still need them, but there just might come a day when I can walk without dangling these penguin wings with no purpose.