The Lady in the Wheelchair

A couple of weeks ago, I had a special encounter with a lady in a wheelchair. Although I had only talked with her for a minute or two, and within that time she taught me a very valuable lesson.

            On a late Monday morning, I had an encounter with a person who I didn’t know. My mom was late to an appointment, so she made me walk (of course)! After, I was ready to go, I started to walk. The dentist’s office was near my parent’s house, thank goodness. But what I didn’t know about was the hill I had to climb just to get there. It wasn’t very steep, but it was a long, long, long sloping hill.

        As a started to ascend the hill, I saw a lady in a wheelchair in front of me. She pushed a couple of times and then she rested. I looked up at the hill and then back at her. I walked behind her for a few more minutes and then saw that she was near the middle of the hill, where it got very hard to climb. I walked beside her, and kindly asked her if she would like any help up the hill. She turned and said to me with a smile, “No, thank you.” I was kind of surprised at her answer. I thought that most people would find that hill a very difficult task to overcome. I think she recognized my facial expression because at that moment she turned and said to me, “There will always be big hills to overcome, and even as it gets harder, you have to continue to push. If you don’t you get accustomed to quitting and you will never be able to overcome those big hills. Besides, there’s always something good waiting on the other side.”

        Her words kind of hit me like a bunch of boulders. I turned to her and said, “Well, thank you for that.” I thought about what she said, and I knew she was exactly right. Many times have I had those big hills to overcome and I realized that more than often, I give up on the big hills. Lately, that big hill has become a mountain. I’m still working up that mountain and waiting to get on the other side, because I know that something good will come out of the work I’ve been doing. Everybody has at least one big hill to overcome and at times, we all find ourselves giving up or putting off climbing those hills. What we don’t realize is the descent is easy and there’s always something good on the other side. I know now that whenever I find a task too difficult, I will think about the lady in the wheelchair and continue to push myself.