Tested to the Limit

Tested to the Limit
Job 34 31- 35: 16

One aspect of the forty-two years during which my first wife had multiple sclerosis was that it was a time of periodic testing, or even of continuous testing (but it was also joyful). As she got to be recurrently tired, or could no longer do things in the house, or couldn’t be very interested in my worries or anxieties, or could only walk very slowly, or couldn’t look after her personal needs, or couldn’t remember things, or got annoyed with me from time to time, or needed help getting in and out of bed, or could no longer feed herself, or no longer speak— how would I cope? My image for it was that it was like weight training. When I could lift a particular weight, the result wasn’t that I could then give up training. Rather, along came the next weight, to see if I could lift that one. Sometimes I could feel I was being tested to the limit. But it meant I grew...