“Thank God for my Elbows!”
©2009 Gopinathan Menon
Hope the title caused you to PAUSE and THINK! Believe me, the title is notas frivolous as you may think and it is about happy living! Just think aboutthis:
We see a blind man and we think `Thank God I’m not blind’. We see a cripple andsay `thank God for my legs’. But has anyone ever said
“Thank God for myelbows!”
I guess not. Because we take most things for granted.Let me demonstrate. If I had no elbow of if it were fused solid, how would I reachinto my pocket? How would I comb my hair? How would I drink a glass of water?How would I brush my teeth? How would I hug a loved one? How would I eat?How would I use the computer? How would I write?
Isn’t it incredible that without my elbows I could not do any of the thousandand one little daily actions that I take for granted?
Tying a shoelace, opening anumbrella, even waving goodbye – these are all impossible without elbows!
So you see dear reader, my statement `Thank God for my elbows’ is not afrivolous one! It deserves serious consideration. Because it is all aboutbeing GRATEFUL!Being GRATEFUL is one of the easiest and fastest ways to become happy! Yettoo many of us take everything we have for granted, and focus only on whatwe lack! Let me relate a very touching experience I had about 3 years agoat a fishing village called Kuala Perlis in the north of Peninsular Malaysia:
While having dinner at a restaurant, I noticed a group of young men at a tablenearby. Most of them were farmers or fishermen with dark weather-beaten faces,but one of them stood out.His face was fair and he was talking animatedly with the others. Then I noticedthat
he had no left hand!
His left arm stopped just below his elbows ending in astump with a few little protuberances of flesh that made up his ‘hand’.He had no palm or fingers. Yet he was holding a cigarette in that deformed limb.When he reached down for a drink I was stunned to observe that
his right handtoo was similar – ending in a stump with a few small appendages in place of fingers
. So how did he drink? His ‘fingers’ were not strong enough or long enoughto hold the glass.So he held the glass between both his `arm-stumps’ and by bending his elbowsbrought the glass to his mouth, and drank as though it were the most natural thing
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