Consider this an ode to ankles

I twisted my ankle last week, slipping on the stairs. Missed the last step and... well, you know the rest. Being a doctor's kid, I decided it probably wasn't fractured because it didn't hurt that much, and since I was on my way out of the house, I continued on to the seminar I was attending.

Fast-forward two days later and I hobbled to work leaning on a walking stick and looking for all the world like a grandma, thinking, I can do this. But even though I tried not to stand or walk around too much, the ankle was getting more painful. My colleague scolded me for not getting it looked at by a doctor: "What if it's fractured?" That, coupled with the pain, drove me to the hospital next door.

The good news was it wasn't fractured; the other good news was that I got a week off work, with orders to stay off my feet!

The rest has done wonders, and taught me more about faith. You don't realise how much faith you put in all your body parts until they fail you. Now every time I take a step, I am wondering, Is this okay? Will the ankle hold up? Am I over-straining it? I really have never considered before whether my ankle would or would not take my weight. It simply did.

We talk about taking things for granted like that is a bad thing. When I was growing up, I heard a lot of sermons cautioning us against taking God for granted, and we're also often warned not to take our parents for granted. The funny thing is that when we are growing up, aren't we encouraged to take things for granted? You want your child to feel secure. You don't keep telling him how lucky he is that you decided to keep him, and that he has food to eat and a roof over his head, and clothes to wear. You don't tell him that he should be grateful he is loved. So when we're young it's okay to take things for granted, but when we're older we shouldn't? Hmmm.

I'm all for an attitude of thanksgiving, but I think taking things for granted is not necessarily bad. All these years I have taken my ankles for granted because they have been working the way they're supposed to. When you can't take something for granted, like now, it's a bad sign! Why are we made to feel guilty when we take things for granted?

So yes, I am very happy that I've had ankles which work well (not to mention other body parts), and I am amazed that I've never before given a thought to the importance of ankles, and I'm sorry for people who don't have ankles that work well, but I don't think it's terrible that I've never before thought to write an ode to ankles.