Two Arms

While shopping yesterday for the elusive small white iron chair for my front porch, I saw something that impacted me.  There, sitting among the patio furniture, was a man with no arms.  He didn't just have one arm missing —no, he had both arms missing — and he wasn't wearing prosthetics either. He had a blank expression on his face. Not sad, not mad, not resentful, just blank. I wish I knew what he was thinking. But maybe I shouldn't do. I didn't even realize how the sight of him had been imprinted on my brain until this morning. When I was getting ready for the day.

I always start with a couple of cups of coffee. We have a semi-professional machine; we are addicts, so coffee is a food group to us. I need only to push a button, and voilà, coffee beans are measured, ground, brewed, and dispensed into my cup before I can say — huh?

And then it dawned on me. What if I had no arms? What if I couldn't push that coffee button all on my own? And so, the morning went that way for me. The what-ifs came rolling in. Questions flooded my brain. How would I do this or that? And for the first time that I can ever remember, I thanked God for my two arms. And I also began to pray for the man with no arms.

It's funny — I hated my arms until this morning. Even when I was thin, I hated them. They've always been muscular, and now that I'm older, they're flabby. My fault, really--but it didn't keep me from hating them until this morning. And now I love my arms. I can do all sorts of things by myself--shower, put on makeup, dry my hair, get dressed, drive a car, pet my dog, sweep--little things that I wasn't even aware of before, like typing on my computer.   I am so in love with these two arms! I can button, snap, type, point, hold things, hug, drive, clean, dress; there are endless possibilities.

I don't even want to think about a life with no arms. I just want to thank God for the two I have.