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Eighty-year-old Eva was afraid. Terribly afraid.
She lived on the eleventh floor of public housing in one of the less
desirable sections of town. Every time she had occasion to use the elevator,
she was overcome with fear. Numbing fear. Other elderly residents who shared
her anxiety opted to use the staircase.
This was not possible for Eva. Advanced arthritis riddled her days and
nights with unrelieved pain, making it necessary for her to ride the
elevator to the first floor dining room three times a day for her meals.
Hers was not a groundless fear. Some residents had been attacked in the
elevators by outsiders who knew the elderly had neither the physical
strength to resist, nor the financial means to pursue legal recourse.
Hearing of her fears, I cross-stitched and framed the verse from Psalms
121:8. "The Lord will watch over your coming and going," and affixed the
little gift to Eva’s door as a surprise. She wept with gratitude.
Now, when she leaves her room, she runs her bony, arthritic hand over the
framed verse, lifts her eyes toward heaven and whispers, "Thank you,
Heavenly Father." Then she more confidently makes her way to the elevator in
a spirit of childlike faith and trust.
I suggested that she always ride the elevator with two or three friends
as a precaution and this added to her sense of peace.
When my sister and I were children in upstate New York, we often chose a
short cut through the dark and deserted alley of the local junior high
school on our way to church. At night it was frightening and we felt it was
fraught with danger. We ran as fast as we
could, singing loudly the old hymn, "God Will Take Care of You,"
ostensibly to scare off any would-be assailants. True, we lived then in a
different era when few crimes occurred in our sleepy, little town but even
so, we lacked good judgment in running through that forbidden alley.
As Christians, we are encouraged to hold onto the timeless promises of
God found in the Scripture. But, today more than ever, we must exercise
caution in the face of possible harm.
Mariane Holbrook is a retired teacher, an author of two books, a musician
and artist.
She lives with her husband on coastal North Carolina. She maintains a
personal website
www.marianholbrook.com and welcomes your Emails at Mariane777@bellsouth.net.
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