How Beautiful Are The Feet

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“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet...”  So we read in Romans 10:15, and, of course, Handel set these words to music in a recitatif in the Messiah.  I would just mention to you, George Frederick, right at this moment in time, my feet don’t feel beautiful at all.  And as for getting them anywhere near any mountains, forget it!

Three months ago, on 31 December of last year, I wrote on this blog about how taking walks can be a source of inspiration to writers, how the act of putting one foot after the other promotes creativity.  I wrote that post before Christmas.  By the time it hit More than Writers, I was suffering badly from plantiar fasciitis, an exceedingly painful inflammation under the ball of the foot, and I’m still suffering.

I’m told by the podiatrist, the massage therapist, two physiotherapists and my doctor, that it will go away again, all of its own accord (apparently), but after some time, as long as eighteen months even.  “I waited patiently for the Lord”, so wrote David in Psalm 40.  I shall have to do the same.

Being forced to sit around, you would have expected me to have written reams.  Nope.  Writing has been like drawing blood out of a stone.  Being unwell stifles creativity - the opposite of walking - and being in pain takes over your thoughts, and makes you tired and depressed.  I have on my computer a whole load of flash stories which I wrote during Flash Nano in November and in need of thorough editing.  Most of them are just sitting there, in their raw state. I did manage to spruce up The Goddess Athena Visits Her Dad, and it appeared in CafeLit last Tuesday, but this has been my only published story this year. 

So, I am full of admiration for writers who manage to write through pain and sickness, Elizabeth Barratt Browning, for instance, the two younger Bronte sisters, Emily and Anne, who both died young of tuberculosis, and some ACW members who, I know, are struggling with ill-health. 

I know my problem is temporary, and not critical.  St Paul had his ‘thorn in the flesh’ (2 Corinthians 12) and this is mine.  He pleaded with God three times – and, as you might expect, I’ve pleaded in prayer for healing too – but God told Paul that His grace was sufficient and his power made perfect in weakness.  God’s grace must also be sufficient to me also. 

Rosemary Johnson writes flash fiction, short stories, novels and book reviews, and lots else besides, including recipes for her local church magazine.  She is the author of Wodka, or Tea with Milk, a novel set during the Solidarity years in Poland in 1980-1, and Past and Present, a collection of her short stories,  will be published by Bridge House Publishing, in the summer.  In real life, she lives with her husband in Essex.