"At least I still have..."

 Over the past year I have become good friends with a woman here in Fort Wayne who has multiple sclerosis, and has struggled with some pretty aggressive digressions in her strength and health lately. She is a remarkable human being, and I love so much about her, from her sassy curly haircut, to her Brooklyn, NY accent, to her candid way of being authentic about her thoughts, to her faith in the Lord that keeps getting a daily workout. 

We talk a lot about disability and faith, and how to hang on to hope in the dark moments of loss and depression. We've also talked about our "thresholds," as in, the limits we imagine our hope might have. "At least I can still sit up," she might say. "I don't know what I'll do when I have to lay down all the time." Last year around this time, she said something like, "At least I can still use my hands..." only, the thing is, she lost the strength in her hands this year and can no longer feed herself and struggles sometimes to navigate her power wheelchair. I could say, "At least I can still feed myself," or "At least I still have the ability to speak and swallow." But she and I both know our diseases keep stealing more and more of our abilities... it's the nature of what we live with. So every time we lose something else, it gets harder to stay positive and hopeful, because we have to find a new thing - very often a smaller and less significant thing - that we are glad we still have.

A few months ago, I told my friend that we need a new perspective. We need to not measure our gratefulness by our physical abilities or circumstances. Our hope is not in the things we have, or the things we can do; our hope is in Christ. So, let's shift our thoughts, change our threshold, to be something more reliable, unchangeable, eternal... 

At least we have a Father who loves us and never abandons us. 

At least we have a Savior who is a man of sorrows, familiar with suffering, who weeps with us. 

At least the Lord is our source of joy, and his joy brings strength. 

At least His grace is sufficient for us, and his power is perfected in our weakness.

At least we have the promise of a kingdom where everything wrong will be made right and everything sad will come untrue. 

These things are all true, and will always remain true, no matter what happens to our bodies or circumstances here in this life.