not as it shoud be

A while back I was working with a patient in our gym at work.  She is a teenage girl who had a brain injury a few years ago.  For the most part, she is very functional in her daily life and physically gets around well.  She has some problems with balance and it is evident by watching her walk that she had some type of diability.  This patient has some impaired cognition and frequently has emotional outbursts.  A lot of times she says things that are not appropriate (no filter) and has inappropriate emotional responses (ex. laughs when it's appropriate to cry).  This one particular day I was working with her in the parallel bars doing some balance activities.  Across the room another therapist was walking with a different patient.  This other patient has cerebral palsy and is in the wheelchair all the time except for the few steps she takes with a walker and assistance from a therapist on the days she comes to therapy.  The young girl I was working with suddenly began crying and would not participate in her therapy.  When I asked her why she was upset she just kept crying and pointing to the other patient saying that she was sad for the lady who couldn't walk.  She was getting louder and and I kept trying to quiet her by reassuring her that the lady was fine.  That she was okay.  That she was happy and was not in pain and was doing a good job.  In my attempts to smooth the situation over with all social appropriateness and political correctness, I tried to convince my patient that everything was "just fine".  I later reflected on the interaction that day.  As much as the other patient is a valuable person who has infinite worth and is created in the image of God, the truth is, that lady was not okay.  What my patient realized is that the lady is not supposed to be like that.  God's original design was not for us to live in bodies like that.  This world is not okay.  Things are not as God created them to be.  This world is not as it should be.

Once upon a time in a garden far far away two people made a choice and they did not live happily ever after.  And, the world has been different ever since.  We do not live in a happily ever after world.  We live in a broken and fallen world full of death and sickness and hurt and disappointment and selfishness and betrayal and hatred and war and pain and the list goes on.  This world is not our home.  But thankfully, we have a God who makes all things new, and He will set it all right again.  He has gone to prepare a home for us and will return to take us there, and we WILL live happily forever after.