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| Believing this is as good as it gets, I lose hope. I give up. And when I stop hoping, I stop limping. To limp, to grieve, is really to insist that there’s got to be more. To cry out in anger or in pain to God is really an act of faith. So no wonder I don’t dance with joy, if I don’t know how to limp. If I expect to feel numb and mediocre in my faith walk with God, I won’t or maybe even can’t notice my own spiritual limp. Not noticing it, I don’t grieve it, or even worse, I don’t bang on God’s door with my complaints. I don’t cry out to God about making things better. I don’t hit bottom. Well, I do, I just don’t know it. But maybe it’s at rock bottom that I relinquish my attempts to heal myself. Maybe it’s only at rock bottom that I stop doing things on my own strength and admit defeat and surrender—really surrender. When I finally let go, I find God doing what I couldn’t do, that is raising me and my situation to new life. Can I dance if I don’t limp? Is the dance of the limpers more joyous, ultimately, than all the rest? One of my favorite plays is the musical Amal and the Night Visitors. In this play, the main character, Amal, is permanently crippled. So of course, the actor who plays Amal works hard to portray a believable limp. But one Christmas when I saw the play, the person playing Amal in this production however, did not have to pretend. His own leg had fallen prey to a debilitating disease. His every step was pain. In the play, Amal’s lameness is cured by the loving Christ-child. Knowing the play, I held my breath as this particular scene drew close. What would happen? Would Jesus heal this man, just like the child healedThe moment came. Amal said, “Look Mother, I can walk!” The actor jumped up . . . and limped across the stage, tossing Continued... | |||||||||
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