My Friends,

As many of you already know, two months ago just before Christmas I “mashed up” my knee pretty well doing a stupid thing on my cross-country skis.  I fell going down a hill and my right ski turned 270° and unfortunately cross-country skis don’t have quick release bindings so something had to give and that something was my knee.  I tore my meniscus, my ACL, my MCL and my PCL.

When I was a kid, my parents thought I was “accident prone.” I think all that meant was that I was very active and neither my brother nor my sister was, so in comparison to them I ended up in the hospital a lot more.  As I look back on life I think I just pushed the envelope more often than not and what that means is occasionally something breaks down.

For some reason, I’m able to take these periods of reduced mobility all in stride and, in fact, see them as blessings in disguise from God.  Because I am forced to slow down I have more time to reflect.  Over the decades my reflections have yielded sweet fruit.  There is something about slowing down that enables us to see things that we wouldn’t normally see at regular speed.  Although I would not voluntarily choose to slow down, time has a way of helping us do that.

I find that most times when I do slow down that I’m closer to walking in cadence with Jesus.

May God grant to each one of you a similar privilege.

Love - your friend,

Don