Strength

            Swinging legs. White walls. A small room, too full.  A little boy, hands gripping the edges of his chair, legs swinging involuntarily back and forth as his sneakered feet can’t quite reach to the floor. His bright eyes are fixed on his grandfather.

            A mother, a daughter. In this small room with white walls sit son and father. One with swinging legs, one with shaking hands. Her heart is torn between joy and pain as she sees her son’s legs swing away, a thought not spared to consider anything but his grandfather. He adores his grandfather, as she adores her father. Yet she can remember a time when those hands did not shake; when they were strong. When they held a worn Bible in his hands, when they rested on a pulpit and gestured ardently as she sat in a wooden pew with the sun streaming through the windows, listening to her father preach. But now those hands shake. A pen falls to the floor.

            A wife, a mother, a grandmother. She held those hands as a girl in love, felt butterflies as his fingers entwined with hers. Those arms had held her at her lowest moment, had given her strength to push on through the darkest night. But now, she must be his strength. She is happy to do it – she loves him more than anything. But she cringes as the pen falls once again.

            Frustration. Once I was strong, towered above the rest. I held my children in my arms, took shit from no one. Now they look at me with pity, as the pen falls to the floor one more time. But his bright eyes still look at me with adoration. She still loves me, after all this time, after my strength is gone. My daughter will always look up to me. Yet where has my strength gone? The pen just keeps falling, and it almost seems like a cruel game.

            So many eyes on me. The white walls seem to close in. Do they know I am trying? The little boy that watches me so intently has never known anything but these shaking hands. Why have I become this? Why have You taken my strength from me?

            “I lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.” The words of Psalm 121 flood through my mind, seemingly in answer to my questioning. On its heels come the words of Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” How many times have I preached these words, have I spoken them as hope in dark places, comfort to those I love most? Yet now they seem nothing more than trite clichés. The words that seem more fitting are “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

            Why, indeed? I know He has not indeed forsaken me, but why must it have come to this? I’ve wrestled with weakness as with a demon, fighting its approach, trying to stave off its advances. Yet still it has come, possessing me like a living thing. Stealing from me all that I once was.

            He smiles at me hopefully, as if to say, “You can do it, Grandpa!” His grin is infectious, a ray of light to my dark musings. A thought pierces through the veil like his smile. All is not right with the world. But my strength lies beyond this world.

            With a sigh, she picks up the pen. A whisper. “One more time.” She braces herself for the clatter, the sound of the pen falling one final time. But it never comes. The swinging ceases. Breath stops. A hand trembles.

            His signature has never been so beautiful. A gift of Strength. Weakness overcome. A memory for a little boy.