As I sit here in the gazebo of the hotel soaking in the evening rays of the winter sun here in Dallas, it reminds me that two years ago about this time I was doing the same thing, except that I was in Boise where it was an exceptionally foggy winter, and brisk even on sunny days. Both times I had just had a knee replacement, although the knee I rehabbed in Boise was as problematic as the weather and this knee just needs a little fine tuning. The weight of winter is lifting from my soul. My husband tries, but does not understand, the way the white winter skies of Kalispell affect me, though I have tried to explain it. I feel the emotional equivalent of having my head slightly under water, just enough that I cannot breathe, and the mental version of static in my brain that keeps me from thinking clearly until sundown when I can no longer see the white skies. Surgery, under the best of circumstances, is stressful on body and mind. Surgery in, or just before, winter is especially so for me.
That is why I had planned to have this second knee replacement in the spring, but my knee had other plans. Halfway through a Labor Day trip to Missouri with my dad, my right knee would neither straighten nor pivot without the kind of pain that made me gasp and grab something to support myself. A cortisone shot helped, but I was afraid that if my knee spent more months in that bent position, I would have difficulty straightening it after the surgery. So once again God arranged for Reed's work requirements to get us out of cloudy Kalispell in the winter. That is why I am in sunny, 60 degree Dallas drinking in the goodness of the sun. That is why I trust God with not only my future, but with my family's. God has shown himself to know what I need and to be faithful too many times to doubt him. My unspoken prayer is a heartfelt, if unoriginal, repetition of thank you, as I sit here in the hotel courtyard basking in the goodness of the Son.
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