Sticking Point:

 One of the few benefits of going beyond the age of 80 years old is that you get to reflect back on the many times of life already lived. You can look back with 20/20 vision on the times in life and realize that they were not coincidence.  The longer you live the more you have to reflect on. Both the good choices and the bad choices. Hopefully more good than bad. 

I think back on some of the times when my life could have changed radically. Like the time in my young teens when I caught a disease that to date had not been identified yet. I was so sick that the last thing I remember is the hospital priest giving me the last rites. They didn't know what the disease was or what would cure it. 

I was given a massive dose of antibiotics and was unconscious for several days and when I finally woke up I was almost back to normal. Or the time I slipped on the steps and fractured a vertebra in my lower back. After being in traction for several weeks I had no residual from what could have been a serious accident. 

Or the time I was stationed in Bermuda and went out to fish a small cove in an old leaky row boat. The tide went out and we were sucked through an opening into the ocean. We could not get back to shore and ended up about 19 miles in the open ocean. But not for a cargo ship seeing us and radioing for help we would have been lost at sea. We had lost sight of the island a few miles back. We were rescued and survived. 

My earlier disease came back while I was in the air force and once more I was failing rapidly but for a medical captain who remembered reading in a journal of symptoms like I had. I was tested and discovered I had a blood disease called histoplasmosis. They sent back to the states for the proper Rx and soon I was fully back to normal. 

I can remember at least a dozen times when I could have perished but was saved or was up against serious odds and came out whole. I call these sticking points in life. What is a sticking point? Anyone who is a weight lifter will recognize the term. When you are laying on the weight bench and have done several reps and with a couple hundred pounds balanced over you and your muscles just will not move that bar up to the to the anchor point - that is a stick point. 

This is where your lifting partner comes in. He/she comes to you and put their hands under the bar and tell you to push. What your muscles wouldn't do they now work and you take the bar up to safety. You think your lifting partner is helping you lift the 200-250 lbs. but in fact it only appears they are when in reality they only have their hands under the bar.  Your brain tells you they are helping and you push up with strength you didn't know you possessed. 

Those who are Christians will understand this concept. When you happen to find yourself in crisis the first thing that you should do is pray. Then as the right time the Lord will come to help you lift the bar that you previously knew you could not lift. I have had more of those  spiritual stick points than most people ever receive. This leads to the best decision I have  ever made and that is surrendering my life to Jesus. I saw with more clarity after that decision and as I look back I see how many times only He could have lifted me out of my predicament.  Their is no other explanation for it. That is where I place my trust and hope in good and bad times.