Thursday, February 1, 2018

Each helps the other, saying to one another, “Take courage.”            Isaiah 41:16
 
     My mother took her first airplane flight at age 49.  She was terrified.  If there was any way she could
have backed out, she would have.  But once we were in the clouds, a great change happened.  She loved it!  Flying became one of her most favorite things.  She would have taken a ‘flight to nowhere,’ just to be in the air.  She loved any trip that involved plane flights.  Although she would never have thought of herself as adventurous, at age 70, Mom climbed the stairs to the top of the Statue of Liberty, her favorite landmark, and looked out from the windows in the statue’s crown.  At 75, she climbed to the rim of Mt. Haleakala, the volcano on Maui.  When she was 80, she walked steep mountain trails in Colorado.  At 85, she accompanied me on weekly trips to Maryland to help care for a family member there.  By age 90, after being diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis, her challenge was to walk from room to room at home, and she tackled that test with determination as well. 
    Courage is an elusive quality.  Those who have it seldom see it in themselves, and while courage usually surfaces under stress, it is also related to joy—the willingness to find joy in living.  “Help me to find my courage, Lord – it’s there, I know -- that I might also find peace … and joy!”

©Carol Dean Henn, 2018