Wrestling with a monster

I spent part of today with a dear friend. She graciously asked if I'd accompany her to a doctor's appointment in Raleigh. I felt honored. It's not easy to ask others, even good friends, to join in on a time consuming trip to the doctor. Her husband was out of town and she can't manage to do things like she used to. It's very frustrating to her but she doesn't show impatience and seldom complains.
She's a lovely, graceful, sweet person. She is elegant, tall and slender, in the prime of her life.

But a monster has stolen her independence.

It has robbed her of her balance, her quick thinking, given her slurred speech and numbness in her fingertips. It gives her sleepless nights filled with great pain.
This monster is scary, lurking around the corners of her and her family's lives day and night, night and day. It pushes her down, takes away her appetite, makes dressing a chore, ties her to a walker and, more and more, to her home. It reduces her to living moment by moment, seeking God's mercy.

The monster?

MS!

I have another precious, kind, friend who suffers from a different form of MS. She struggles to carry on, unrelenting in her daily activities. She is still mobile, driven to help others. She serves her church with great devotion, a woman of faith. Oftentimes I marvel at her energy! She's not one to sit still, but she has found within the last year that this monster demands she use a cane once in a while, and it demands rest. So, now and then she listens and does become still for a time.

MS----the culprit, the evil one. One day, in God's mercy, it will be cornered, arrested, and put to death.
What a day of rejoicing that will be!
Till then, friends are good medicine:)