Hanging in there

I remember hearing a story on the radio about a guy who I think was named "Dr. Nick." He had become a para- or quadriplegic in his youth, I think, after diving into a swimming pool. His life was a series of survivals, because para- or quadriplegia isn't just a thing that happens and then you're done. There are complications, and you're susceptible to issues that come from not being able to use your body the way it's designed to be used. Think, on a very small scale, of bedsores that develop when a person lies in bed for too long.
Anyway.
The interviewer asked him if he was ever angry at his body, and his answer has not left me: he said he was so thankful to his body for hanging in with him all this time, despite his reckless treatment of it in his youth, and despite what it had had to endure since the accident.
Makes me think of God, and all of us who have turned our back on God in anger. But God... God has hung in there with us. Even if, like a paralyzed person can't feel their legs, we can't always feel God's presence. It can even, I imagine, be hard for a paralyzed person to reckon with the fact that by all accounts, their legs are there, if they can't feel anything. I have felt that way about God. Even, sometimes, I can see the signs that God is with me, but I can't feel anything, and that makes it hard to believe God is there. Here.
So tonight, when I easily and surely can feel God here with me, I thank God for hanging in there with me, despite my reckless treatment of this gift God's given me, this life, and despite all the suffering God's had to endure on my account since then.

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