July 25

Taking a week off and being away from everything was so perfect, but one thing I was really looking forward to was church on Sunday morning. The sermon was on healing. Well, let me backtrack. The whole series is "___ happens." This Sunday was "healing happens." We heard stories from others...like how a woman had bacterial meningitis at two weeks old and wasn't supposed to live. And if she did, she wouldn't walk or accomplish many other milestones. One woman was told she would never get pregnant, but is currently seven months along and carrying a healthy baby. The stories went on and on and these people talked about how they just prayed about their situations and just kept faith, handing everything over.  There were so many testimonies of miracles that have happened...and they were everywhere. It wasn't just a one in a million occurrence, there were tons of stories from the people in our congregation alone. One thing I took from the sermon was when Pastor John said "sometimes healing leaves a scar and sometimes it leaves a limb." Like a new branch...with new possibilities that leads to a different route. 

The one minute devotional was this:

It's been one thing after another and I really feel like God is telling me not to lose hope and not be discouraged. And it all comes right when I need that reassurance. At the end of the service, members of the different prayer teams were up front and available to pray with anyone that wanted "healing" or prayers. Some people went forward and others left to carry on with their Sunday plans. Dusty looked at me and asked if I wanted to go up and, honestly, no- I didn't. I don't like doing anything that draws more attention to myself, even if it was in church. I just feel like I already have more eyes on me because of this wheelchair, why do anything that makes it worse? But something was tugging at my heart and Dusty and I went towards the front. Everyone was already paired up or in groups, but a man came up behind me and held my hand, saying "I don't know you or your story, but I just feel called to pray for you." And he did. And we cried together. And I didn't even really see his face...I couldn't pick him out of a crowd if I saw him again. I was telling my family about that and they told me he was actually on his knees next to me and he wasn't one of the members of the prayer team...he was just a member of the church that saw me go towards the front and decided to follow. My heart just felt so at peace when we left and as I went on with my day and I just have a really good feeling of what is to come. 

Our Sirius XM radio prescription expired for in the car and we decided that was a luxury we could do without (even though that makes the drives up and down the road a little more frustrating, trying to find stations without static. But hey, first world problem, rights?) luckily, we found KLOVE, the station I listened to with Herb in Philly! On the way to Baltimore, we heard the encouraging story of the day and it was about a man paralyzed over 12 years ago. With intense years of therapy, he finally stood on his own for the first time in over a decade. He posted something on Instagram about it with the hashtag #GodisFaithful.

 http://abcnews.go.com/US/paralyzed-football-star-stands-unassisted-time-10-years/story?id=40775555

I felt like both finding this station and hearing that story was meant to be, especially after a week away from therapy. It got me in a better mindset to take on the week ahead. 

I had the pool first thing in the morning and there were a lot of changes since I saw Beth two weeks ago. She said I was actually picking my left leg up then swinging it forward and my right leg was still initiating movement towards the end of our hour together when it usually fatigues pretty quickly. But the best part was that I did some standing between our bouts of walking and I was straightening my knees on my own...Beth was able to take her feet completely off my knees so I was doing it all...and the guy holding my hips forward said he was barely doing anything either. Then, I even took one arm off and hold it in the air.

The Rt 600, the machine that's like the stim bike, but has me standing and supporting my own weight with stim, went even better. Dennis said it was going so well that the machine was making noises he wasn't even used to...I'm not sure if id take that as a good thing, but he did. Haha.