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A Season for Miracles |
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As I write this, it is mid-December, 1999. We've just finished mailing Christmas greetings to family and friends. Since we make magnetic dry-erase boards in our home-based business, it seemed appropriate to send Christmas dry-erase boards instead of Christmas cards.
"When the holiday season has long faded away, We slide a small clear plastic clip on to the top edge of the magnetic dry erase board. The clip is designed to hold a pencil-sized dry-erase marker. As we prepared our Christmas greetings, Paula's job was to snap the dry-erase markers into the plastic clips. If you know my wife, Paula, you know that she has the "chronic progressive" flavor of multiple sclerosis. Since contracting the disease some 16 years ago, her condition has steadily gotten worse. The disease has slowly but surely affected her physically, emotionally, and mentally. Things that you and I do without a second thought are very difficult or impossible for Paula to do. If you were snapping the dry-erase markers into their clips, you would reach into the clip box with one hand while simultaneously reaching into the marker box with your other hand. With a clip in one hand and a marker in the other, you'd bring your hands together and snap the marker into the clip. The whole process would take you much less time than you've just spent reading this paragraph. It isn't that simple for Paula. She concentrates very hard as both hand reach into the clip box and try to capture a clip. Sometimes she grabs one on the first try. Most times, though, it takes several tries before she manages to get just one clip in her hands. As her hands tremble and shake, clips get shoved left and right. It sometimes seems that both the clips and Paula's hands have minds of their own, and they absolutely refuse to have any kind or meeting of the minds. When she finally gets a firm grip on just one clip, she repeats the process with the marker box. Between unsuccessfully trying to grab clips and markers, and then resting up between tries, it isn't uncommon for Paula to take four or five minutes to "snap" a dry-erase marker into its clip. Watching Paula struggle time after time to put those markers and clips together brought home to me again just what an amazing person she is. Take getting out of bed, for example. If you're like most of us, your first thought in the morning is "can I get away with hitting the snooze alarm?" For the last six or seven years, Paula's first thought has been "am I going to be able to get out of bed without Rob having to pick me up and put me in my wheelchair?" And on 25 to 28 days of each of the past 18 months, her body has answered with a definite "no." Two or three times a month Paula's body says "maybe," and it is a toss-up whether she ends up in her wheelchair or sprawled on the floor. But that other day or two? Ahhhhh...those are the days that Paula focuses on. She grabs her legs, shoves them out from under the covers, maneuvers them so her feet hit the ground, grabs the pole we attached to the bed, and pulls herself to a standing position. Shaking and trembling, Paula pivots and plops her rear-end into her wheelchair - worrying the whole time that her body might betray her and send her tumbling to the floor. As I write this, it is mid-December, 1999. When you turn on
the television, countless shows remind you that the You may well see glorious and wonderful things happen during the Christmas season. Around our house, though, we see glorious and wonderful things every day. Paula's strength of spirit, positive attitude and unselfish attempts to do all she can are truly miraculous, making the "season of miracles" something that happens in our home each and every day, 365 days a year.
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Take a look at our Customized Creations home page
Our Christmas dry-erase boards
just barely fit into a #10 business envelope, and are as thick
as your typical refrigerator magnet. Most of the dry-erase board
is blank, so our family and friends have plenty of room to write.
The left third of the dry-erase board's we sent to our friends
and my family has a faded out drawing of a Christmas tree ornament,
and says,
Christmas
season is the season of miracles. Radio programs and newspaper
articles focus on the generosity of spirit and unselfish deeds
that become more common every December.