Blog Bio We All Need Crutches of One Kind or Another

Because of my limitations, I can’t reach all that far. Only one hand extends to my face. Even leaning over, I can’t extend my reach past my knees. I can’t pick things up from the floor. Can’t reach things too high or even a couple of feet away. I have trouble with grasping and dexterity.

That translates to often dropping things large and small. In order to be able to retrieve things I drop or that are out of reach, I add loops to everything from clothes to electronics. If I drop something the added loop ensures I am able to pick it up.

The loops are only part of the equation. I use different varieties of utility sticks with hooks to pick up those things out of my reach. I have three-foot hooks and hooks half that size. I carry expandable hooks in my purse and on my person. I have some sort of hook or squeezable tong in almost every room.

The first hook was created for me at a rehab center when I was still a teen. The center was helping me become more independent. Things they taught forged my imagination in other ways to foster my independence. I could be angry I need such assistance, but that would not help me live my best life. I could refuse to use help such as a wheelchair or crutches when required after one surgery or another, but I’d never recover what mobility I could have.

Some mock Christians with the claim that Christianity is a crutch. Most Christians cringe at the very thought. I don’t. Do you know why? If we’re Christians it’s because we realize we do need help. We can’t do life on our own without messing up. Jesus came to offer life, guidance, and help.

I can’t live my life to the fullest without assistance. My utility hooks are crutches and my crutches, when I need them, are very real crutches. So what if we need Jesus? I do. But He is so much more than a crutch. He is my Savior, my friend, my confidence, and my hope.

Everyone needs some sort of crutch in life and Jesus in my life brings a peace and joy that no amount of wealth, power, sex, drugs or alcohol—all crutches—can provide. If I’m going to need a crutch, I choose Jesus. How about you?

© 2022 Carolyn R Scheidies

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Blog My Special Radio

I was an active child. I loved wandering the hills behind the parsonage in Wyoming. I loved riding horses. I loved reading, but also loved being outside working on one project or another. Six months after we moved to a rural church in northern Kansas, I contracted juvenile rheumatoid arthritis—though I wasn’t diagnosed for several months. JRA was something new to the doctors and they didn’t really know how to treat the disease in young people.

My parents took me to different rehab centers. Some helped me in different ways. Some not so much. One left me with nightmares for months after I got home again. When my folks took me down to Hot Springs Arkansas to an outpatient clinic for treatments, I was in pain and in a wheelchair. I could not walk, could not even wheel my chair.

My folks had little money, but my dad felt so bad for me. As we wondered in downtown stores before an appointment, I must have indicated my liking for a small transistor radio. It was small, blue, and cool. I didn’t expect anything to come of my checking it out. Small radios like that weren’t in our budget. Nevertheless, dad bought it for me. I could hardly believe it. I wanted to cry. I knew he sacrificed to get me that radio.

For the next few years that radio helped make time go faster and engage my attention when I wasn’t reading or otherwise engaged. I could be outside and listen to the Triple Crown races that held my attention in the spring.

Most of all that radio stayed with me long after I had massive surgery to get me up and walking, long after I grew up and married. How could I let go of what reminded me of something so important, especially when I needed encouragement during those years of frustration and pain--my father’s love?  

© 2022 Carolyn R Scheidies

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