Take one step

My grandmother was diagnosed at the age of 35 with rheumatoid arthritis in 1923.  She had a four year old daughter and a husband who was soon to be debilitated by a stroke.  She was told she would spend the rest of her life in a wheel chair.

She spent the next 45 years doing everything to stay out of one.  And over the years, she learned when faced with impossible situations to just do something.  I know.  She lived with us.  I would often wake at night to the sweet aroma of brownies baking or the whirring of her sewing machine.  Her aches and pains kept her from sleeping. "No sense in just laying there," she would tell me.  There were many things she couldn't do, but "I can do something."

She passed away many decades ago, but I can still hear her voice.  When I don't know what to do, take one step.

Whether faced with something way too enormous
                       or the roar of emptiness,
heading into the rush of a proverbial interstate
                       or an unmarked trail into the unknown,
seizing an opportunity within my ability
                       or something far beyond me,
embarking into a clear direction
                       or walking right into
                       the thick black clouds of a storm,
going frantic by the number of choices
                       or paralyzed by them,
understanding what is going on
             or standing right in the middle of mystery,
the world spinning way too fast
         or the clock tick, tick, ticking slow,
take His hand
and take just one step.

What is ONE thing you can do
                             right now?
Pray,
put on your shoes,
         and take one step.
You may not be able to do anything
       more than one step and yet another.
But then again,
           that is what walking is all about.
Take one step.
And He will show you the next.

We do not know what to do,
but our eyes are upon You.

                       2 Chronicles 20.12