OUCH! (or The Not So Little Mermaid)

The flare up continues - both feet - zimmering painfully around - dreading my arms, hands and shoulders joining in.   On Wednesday morning, the pain was so bad in my right foot, but at least the left foot was back on line. 

You will remember Hans Christian Anderson's Little Mermaid, who when she got her human feet found they were as painful to walk on as sharp knives.  So for me this week, think: Little Mermaid, only an older, fatter version, with none of the fairytale glamour.

Actually it is such a sad story in so many ways, if I am remembering it right, all predicated on the idea that we were all brought up with (in Christendom), that we have an "immortal soul".  In the story, mermaids do not, and so the poor mermaid princess pays a terrible price for trying to obtain one.

Yet the idea of the immortal soul is NOT a Christian teaching - the Bible tells us simply and clearly that we ARE souls, and we can and do die.  When God breathed life into our first parents, they became living souls.  But from the moment they made that tragic decision to cut themselves off from their Creator, their Source of life, they became dying souls. And they did eventually die and return to the dust of the ground from which they were created.

That is our tragedy.  We, who should all have been born of perfect, living parents, are all born of imperfect dying ones - through no fault of our own. So we are imperfect and dying from the moment we are born. The poor little mermaid had no need to envy our condition, nor replace her comfortable tail with painful feet.

The photo above was taken by Captain B.  It is a Mermaid's Purse - the nearest thing we have seen so far to a mermaid on our local beach.

Anyway, my mind was taken off my pain and self-pity by a visit from two friends. We had tea, cakes (marmalade muffins), a nice chat, and did some work together, we shared ideas.  And I had my usual double Zoom session with another friend in the afternoon, all of which really really helped.

Once again I ask myself, where would I be now, what state would I be in, if I had not talked to those two lovely Jehovah's Witnesses who called at my door in my Northern hometown all those years ago?

We are offering free home bible courses to all who will accept one... Jehovah, the God of all comfort will help and sustain all who will come to Him.

Left foot still very painful this morning, so I will be attending the meeting tonight in Zoom. I need to try to get it right as I have a hospital appointment, following on the two scans, coming up that I need to attend.