Taking Broken Wings and Learning to Fly

     My friend Nancy can’t run her fingers over the keys of her baby grand piano anymore. Her three guitars lie dusty. Although she used to sing in groups, Nancy’s voice is a whisper now, so faint that I lean forward toward the sofa as her lips move. “It’s rough,” she says.
     Nancy has dropped thirty pounds from whatever cruelty attacked her, leaving her feet shuffling, her hands trembling, her voice faint, and her doctors puzzled.
     A few years ago when she hit a decadal birthday, Nancy jumped off a California cliff and parasailed over the ocean. Back then she relished co-piloting her husband’s plane as they cut through clouds.
     Flying has a new definition for Nancy these days. With a trembling hand, she strums my ukulele while I finger the chords. We quietly sing songs we once raised our voices to. We joke that with a little more practice, we could put out a hat on the mall and collect change. I say that I can’t bring my tap shoes next time I visit because I don’t own them anymore. No problem, Nancy says. She’ll provide cowboy boots, and we can do the electric slide. Another chuckle.
     I’m in cancer recovery and Nancy has an unnamed disease, so we don’t soar as high as we used to. But today we heed the challenge on Nancy’s phone case to “take those broken wings and learn to fly.” With the wind of God’s Spirit beneath us, we take our broken wings and rise above our circumstances.
     It's what we must all do, and it's good enough.