Week 3.5 update

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As you can tell, I let time get away from me and didn’t get around to posting a 3-week update. Things are going well; I started steps late last week (going up … still not quite ready to go down without a lot of support). The physical therapist started me on sit-squats today (start to sit down, but as soon as your butt taps the bench, stand back up!). Oi vey – I don’t know how many of those I could have done before the knee problems, but I managed to do three sets of 10 today.

Week 3.5 after meniscus repair

I am very excited about the upcoming weekend, because it will be the four-week mark, which means that I can swim! Hooray! 🙂 I may also take a luxurious bubble bath, just because I can.

I have progressed to the recumbent bike and am doing some leg machine exercises with a little bit of weight. Most of my “homework” exercises from physical therapy are geared toward rebuilding leg strength, as well as stretching the knee. I think it will be a while before I can leg-press 730 lbs again, but perhaps I’ll get there, eventually! 😉

I feel a little self-conscious going into the Y and moving the weights to a teensy-weensy amount, but then I figured what the heck – I don’t have anything to prove to anyone.

All in all, I think I’m doing pretty well. You can see in the pic that there is still quite a bit of swelling, but the sutures are healing nicely, and it doesn’t look like the scars will be too noticeable.

Holding Tight (Prayer Devotional for the week of September 23, 2012)

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Luke 18 tells us about a man of distinguished position who approached Jesus and addressed him as “Good Teacher,” then asked what he needed to do to earn eternal life. Rather than answer his question outright, Jesus answered him with a question of his own: Why would he call him good? No one but God is truly good.

Jesus redirected the conversation and talked about obedience and adhering to God’s commands. The man stammered on about he’d kept all of the commandments, to his best recollection. But, Jesus was not only interested in the man’s ability to follow the rules; he wanted to deal with his heart issues.

After listening to the man justify his track record of good behavior, Jesus told him that he had only one thing left to do. I imagine at this point, the well-to-do official was feeling pretty good about himself. After all, he’d been a rule-follower all of his life, so what’s one more hoop to jump through? If this Jesus fellow wanted him to do one more task, how hard could it be?

But then, Jesus dropped the bombshell and told him to sell all of his possessions, give the money to the poor and become one of his followers. The Bible says that the man “became terribly sad. He was holding on tight to a lot of things and not about to let them go” (v. 23, MSG).

That is a very insightful statement. In this man’s case, what he was holding onto was what our family calls stuffy-stuff: possessions and wealth. Jesus knew that those things had a grip on the man’s heart that would prevent him from being fully devoted to him. I think it’s important to note that Jesus didn’t command everyone he met to sell all of their possessions. What he did do, however, was get to the heart of what was keeping them in sin. If their heart issue wasn’t about money, specifically, then he unabashedly pointed out their pride, promiscuity and other areas of greed and selfishness.

If we are going to find balance and rejuvenate our relationship with God, then we need to address the heart issues that keep us walled off from him. Some of the folks listening to Jesus’ conversation with the rich official asked if it’s so difficult, what chance does any wealthy person have of getting into heaven? “No chance at all,” Jesus said, “if you think you can pull it off by yourself. Every chance in the world if you trust God to do it” (v. 27, MSG).

He asks the same question of us. Will we continue focusing on all the good things we do, like the rich official did, or will we let God deal with the issues that are keeping us from being fully devoted to him?

The end is [almost] nigh!

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Woohoo! I got approval for my two spring courses (Innovation in the Public Sector and Governmental Budgeting & Finance. Fun, fun! ), which will leave only ONE ELECTIVE to take in the summer!

And then, I officially* begin my dissertation in the fall. (*I’m already working on the framework for it. If I make a lot of headway this semester and in the spring – like tying in class assignments to my dissertation topic – then I might actually be able to start writing in the spring/summer and FINISH in the fall!)

OMG. I can’t believe the end is [almost] nigh!!

P.S. “Crazy Train” by Ozzy Osbourne came on my iHeartRadio channel as I was typing. How appropriate – ha!