Now that March is well underway, I find myself healing quickly from my knee replacement — something that delights me more than I can say.
It has now been a little over a month since the surgery, and I’m already walking without a walker or cane. Actually, I abandoned the walker after the first week. The cane I carry only if I’m going outside, mostly to signal to people: be careful, stay back. I don’t actually lean on it.
I can bend my knee about 120 degrees now, and once the swelling goes down completely it will be even more. Best of all — my leg is straight! For years I’ve been bowlegged, which it turns out was caused by arthritis. (I had always thought it came from horseback riding.) Now my leg is as strong and straight as anyone could ask for.
Of course, my angels have been working overtime.
During these past weeks — and especially in the anxious weeks before surgery, when I kept hearing stories about disasters under the surgeon’s knife — prayer has been my aid and support.
Thirty years ago, in the 1990s, I wrote a book about prayer called The Path of Prayer. I must confess I still dislike that title, which the publishing house gave it against my wishes. I wanted the book to be called “When You Are Hurting and In Need.” Because that is when prayer becomes real. And sometimes, paradoxically, that is also when you lose the capacity to pray.
I wrote the book because I was searching for answers myself:
What actually happens when you pray?
Are prayers answered? Always, or only sometimes?
Would it be the same if I didn’t pray?
What—or who—am I praying to?
And what if I don’t believe in God (or whatever name we give the Divine)?
Even now I still receive letters from people who have somehow discovered the book and tell me they’ve marked it up and how much it meant to them.
I think the book is actually as important as my book on angels, but of course it sank with a thud — perhaps tied to a block of concrete by that unfortunate title.
Still, if anyone is curious about prayer, or why I spend so much time in silence and reflection, it might be worth a glance.
Meanwhile, I am grateful — grateful to be healing, grateful for a strong straight leg again, and grateful for whatever unseen helpers may have been standing by.
And I am very happy to be walking again.
— Sophy