A Tale Of Two Pictures

I recently had the honor of speaking to my church’s Prime Time group. They’re in the prime of life—past age 55 and eager to deploy their accumulated wisdom and experience in service.

I shared a story centered around two images.

The first image was a hospital hallway about five weeks after my injury. Therapists loaded me into my first wheelchair and rolled me to a spot with a piece of red tape on the smooth, level tile floor. My initial therapy goal was to push my chair ten feet without stopping.

I couldn’t do it.

I was weak and sick and just beginning to recover from severe trauma and major surgery. I’d spent several weeks flat on my back, but the reasons were just excuses

The fact is that I simply didn’t try. I didn’t try because I didn’t care. I didn’t care because I didn’t think it mattered because I didn’t believe I’d ever get better.

I didn’t believe. I lost hope. I lost the confident expectation based on faith.

When you lose hope, your spirit dies.

I wanted everyone to leave me alone. I wanted to sit in a corner and die.

Left on my own, I’d still be sitting in that hallway staring at that impossible ten-foot barrier. Thankfully, God doesn’t leave us alone—even when that’s what we ask for.

The rest of the story I told the Prime Time folks is the story of RELENTLESS GRACE. It’s the story of the people God sent who wouldn’t allow me to give up on myself, the people who encouraged and traveled with me. It’s the story of the guys who got me started handcycling. It’s the story that eventually opened the door to the crazy dream that became RICH’S RIDE.

I said this was a tale of two images.

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Becky snapped this one about fifty yards from the end of the Mississippi River ride. It’s twenty-four years after that day in the hospital hallway.

It’s a picture of God’s promise in Romans 8:28. He promises He’ll cause all things to work together for good, that He won’t waste our struggles.

If Jesus had appeared in that hospital hallway and talked about the handcycle trip and the joy of completing 1500 miles, do you think I would have believed? Frankly, I doubt it. I doubt if anyone could have seen me that day and imagined the journey God planned.

I think it’s what God had in mind all along, but He showed it to me in stages as I was prepared to understand.

I asked the audience to imagine the circle of people God used to get me to that place of celebration. I saw lots of smiles in the room. I told them I believe Jesus hugged every one of those folks as I crossed the finish line.

I think He wants us to find the people in our lives who might be stuck on their own impossible ten-foot tasks, who might be ready to give up. He doesn’t ask us to fix them or to be responsible for the result.

He asks us to walk with them, to encourage, to share hope, to love.

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