Here in Phoenix, there are lots of walls and gates.  Nearly every yard has at least one stone or brick wall concealing what’s inside.  There are also many wrought iron gates and iron tops on the stone/brick walls.  Why?  I don’t know.  Many of Hannah’s neighbors have had social gatherings of one sort or another while we’ve been here, so keeping others out doesn’t seem to be the reason.  Many of the gates and walls look nice – they give the house some adornment.  Hannah’s yard has brick wall on all sides with some iron work also.  Why, in Phoenix AZ would the vast majority of homes and apartments have walls?

Most people have built walls in their lives.  These are not walls that you can necessarily see.  They’re designed to try to keep pain or other negative emotions/situations out.  I have put up walls when I’ve been hurt.  As I grow older, I’m not necessarily getting wiser.  There are times when I still put up walls to avoid painful situations.  The problem is that these types of walls don’t usually protect, they just try to deny that the event is occurring.  Pushing others away, or not acknowledging others, during a tough time usually just makes the rough time rougher.  God designed us humans for community, to be together, to help each other and support one another.

When I heard the words “your daughter needs a heart transplant” my initial reaction was to just ignore it, go on with life as usual and deal with the seriousness, or consequences, at a later time than when they occurred.  I built a wall of denial.  God would not let that rest.  By that evening, I was being barraged with ideas on how to make this lifestyle change work and do the things necessary to try to heal her heart.   By the next day I was reviewing our ability to financially do this and making the decision to resign from my job, if necessary, to do this.  Years of reading about the benefits of plant based whole food diets came flooding through my mind.  I began going back through several of the books that I owned on the subject and refreshing my memory about them. I re watched several documentaries on the subject.  That wall of denial came down like the walls of Jericho did in the Bible. I faced the situation and realized that I had to at least try to help my child live.   This is proving to be a tough task, but we are doing it.  With God’s grace we will accomplish these 6 weeks and figure out how to implement this ongoing when we return home. 

Tiff and I increased our morning walk.  We are walking at a faster pace, which is still on the slow side by other people’s perspective.  For us it’s a pretty good clip.  As you will recall, our 1^st walk, nearly 3 weeks ago, we went less than half a block when we had to turn around and come home because of pain and shortness of breath.  We decided to measure our new distance and it turns out that we are now walking a full mile in the morning.  While it’s no great distance for most, it is very good for us – and in under 3 weeks! We need to set a new goal, maybe 2 miles by the time we leave in 3 more weeks – maybe more 😊.    We are faithfully getting freshly extracted juice in every day.  We have increased our time in the sun to 15 minutes on each side and, after tomorrow, we will have ¾ of Hannah’s house cleaned and fairly well put together. 

Day 20 is done and day 21 is on its way.  “The trouble with jogging is that, by the time you realize you’re not in shape for it, it’s too far to walk back” – Franklin P. Jones (author)