The benefits of walking:  improves circulation, sleep and even your mood.  We all know that walking is good for a long list of physical benefits, but there is more.

Perspective.

Walking down the corridors of a hospital, for example.  Or a nursing home.

No one wants to be in a hospital, unless it’s to deliver a baby.  While it’s true that hospitals are there for our great benefit, we avoid them at all cost.  At the same time, we are very thankful to have first-world capabilities and top-notch facilities when the need arises.

Why am I speaking so obviously about something we all know to be true?  Because I truly don’t think we get it.

Life is short, and if we’re not careful we will waste it pursuing things that really won’t matter in the end.

No one wants to live in a nursing home either.  But it happens, and when it happens to one that you love, you realize that no matter how much you want to have control over a situation, sometimes you just can’t.

I can choose a doctor or a hospital or nursing home, but what I cannot control is how my loved one will be treated in those situations.  I have the utmost respect for those in the nursing profession.  I personally know, and am friends with and even related to more nurses than I could count.  Here’s what I’ve observed.  The quality of the care they give is not measured by their education or their skills.  Most of us never really know what it took for them to get there.  We know that they had to finish courses and take tests and pass clinicals to get to where they are, so that is a given.  What we see and what really matters is how well they treat our loved one.

Those who work in hospitals and nursing homes have so much in common.  Dealing with long hours and difficult situations, they are called to care for those in need.  Many of them entered their profession with a heart to serve others. To make a difference.  And they do.  It matters that we leave the building, trusting the care of our precious wife, mother, grandmother or friend to them.

And we expect them to be kind.

When we were choosing a nursing home for my sweet mother, we were most concerned about her physical care, of course, but it was just as important that she be treated with respect and kindness.  While we certainly understand that they aren’t always treated in kind themselves, these caregivers often choose to ignore their own feelings for the benefit of another.

A lesson we could all learn.

Walking is a great way to clear your head.  To gain perspective.  I’m not recommending you walk through an hospital or a nursing home or a cemetery–though it can be enlightening.  Just put away your phone and even your headphones and go for a walk around your neighborhood.  A park.  Anywhere that will give you a chance to clear your head and give you a fresh perspective.  Ask God to open your eyes to the world around you and help you to see it from His perspective.

He does, after all, have the whole world in His hands.

“Therefore, be imitators of God, as dearly loved children, and walk in love, as Christ also loved us and gave himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God.” 

Ephesians 5:1-2