One of my favourite verses in the Bible is Isaiah 40v31. It says ‘but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.’  Yesterday I started to notice things and people around me that are constrained or held back in some way.

I am frankly fed up using my own experience as an example but sadly, it is very easy to come across others going through similar things. The most painful one yesterday was seeing a teenage girl in a wheelchair stopped from going down to the beach as the steps made it impossible for her to get there. She seemed fine as her phone was her main focus, but her parents were clearly frustrated. Later on, I looked down my street at the cars half-way across the kerb and thought how annoying and perilous they had unwittingly made it for anyone in a wheelchair or pushing a pram.

I watch people doing things all the time that are nothing for them, but could be a huge struggle for someone else. It is a hard observation, but if you find things easy to do, maybe do them for the person beside you who finds them hard. When I have my rollator in front of me, usually people realise they need to give me space. But what if the need is more difficult to see? The second feature on Jeremy Vine this lunch time was about people needing and often failing to get a seat on the train. Most people nowadays are primarily caught up in themselves and don’t notice that someone else may be struggling. A woman in her 80s stood the whole way from York to London as no-one thought to give up their seat!

Can you think of a way to help people fly when they are stuck or weighed down? It could be as simple as parking by the pavement not on it, or pulling your chair in to let people walk past.

The latest freeing thing that happened to me was I was introduced to a recumbent bicycle. Suddenly my existence was transformed from stationary to flying. I felt the wind in my hair as I whizzed downhill in the park. That discovery was the unexpected fulfillment of that verse in Isaiah. Before, I was grudgingly thinking that life for me would always consist of sitting watching life race past without me, but now I see that there are other options, alternative ways to live. All I did was look around and ask, and this miracle was within my reach!

Can you think of anyone you know who can make things easier for you? Or is there anything you could do for someone else? I remember last summer when I couldn’t make it down to the shore, my cousin said she was tempted to bring a bucket of sea water up for me to put my feet in😍.

I wish I had been able to find a way for that young girl to be on the sand but even her parents couldn’t do that. What can I do? Maybe I’ll become that person who writes regular letters of complaint to people who do have the power to effect change.

Buckets and bicycles may seem like nothing, but they meant everything to me. What seemingly insignificant thing can you do to help someone else fly?