Mike's shoes were completely refurbished at the clinic yesterday after they made the adjustments to his brace. What an improvement! He managed ok for several hours without them, better than he thought he would, in his high top sneakers. Getting out of that brace altogether may not be as difficult a transition as he thought. Maybe some of his therapy will include walking in regular shoes.

I lifted another shot of Pip from Benji's pictures. This is the wagon we bought for him Christmas '04. I hope he gets plenty of enjoyment from it. Papaw Vance bought one for me when I was a year old and hauled me all over Walnut Grove in it. It's one of my earliest memories. Ricky and Benji had one that they literally wore out. Ricky pulled that wagon with his little "brudder" riding for miles. Benji was a demanding little passenger, too, getting very upset if Ricky wanted to quit before he did. One of their favorite things to do was load Daddy's driveway gravel in it, pull it to the other end of the driveway and dump it, over and over they entertained themselves doing this. Back when county supervisors delivered gravel for private driveways, I remember how excited they got with all the "new rocks," inspecting them closely, looking for the especially pretty rocks to give Mama. Red wagons, every kid should have one.

Mike's friend Ron became a grandfather around 4 am today. His daughter Stacy had a 7 lb. 4 oz. daughter, Ashley. Mike is meeting him after his workout at St. D to visit the new mother and baby, and to have lunch.

I had an epiphany while reading today's devotional. The Gospel reading was Luke 9:18-27, with the emphasis on this verse: For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.

My new insight was this - rather than beating myself up for being so duty-bound, accept it as the opportunity for growth that it is. I feel like such a sap sometimes when I deprive myself of things I want in order to "do the right thing, the Christian thing." The regret and resentment do not enhance the learning experience, but diminish it. Our devotional had this paragraph:

Challenging and frightening as new realities in the world and in ourselves may be, the most difficult times in our lives are when we do our best growing. Times that have an edge compel us to deal with the destruction of cherished ideas and relationships and risk giving them up in favor of renewal. It can seem chaotic and dangerous, but if we don't face that chaos and danger, we don't gain anything; we only lose what we have. Stasis, staying the same, is not an option. If we avoid the shakeups, we give up our chance to grow and become a new person in Christ.

With as many shakeups as I've had in my life, I'm sure my mind already knew this, but today my rebellious heart understood.