The needle is stuck again

I have seen numerous members of my family and friends go through the ups and downs of chronic illnesses, and watched as they struggled with tasks which once they had performed with ease.
When I was just a child, volunteering in a local nursing home, I met a woman who was around eighty at the time. Her name was Georgia
McMahan. Georgia endured many of the ailments of her fellow residents but you would never know it.
From the moment you saw her, the smile that beamed from her face uplifted you and gave you a spirit of glee that could carry you
through any task. Added to the smile were words of encouragement, concern, and hope that poured from her very being.
While many of the folks that my efforts brought me in contact with were mired in what seem to be a ditch of despair, Georgia shined as
if standing on a mountain top in a field of wild flowers.
Sometimes as I hear different people share similar issues again and again, I see in my mind the spinning turntable of my youth with a 33
1/3 rpm record going round and round. I remember when a particular tune had been played too much or accidently scratched, sometimes the needle would find itself stuck repeating the same musical phrase over
and over again.
It took me getting up, going to the record player, and bumping the needle’s arm ever so gently to help it get out of the record’s deep
dark vinyl groove and move it musically on down the road.
Like that needle, it is so easy to get stuck in the scratches and wore out spaces of our lives and find it hard to move on. We spin
around endlessly in the same spot, repeating the same actions, saying the same things only to find ourselves doing it over again.
Sometimes it takes someone to give us a gentle shove to realize that just a millimeter down our path we may find something better, and
even if we don’t, we are better for the trying.
As I think back on Georgia now, I sort of see her as that person in that place who God sent to gently nudge all those around her and give
them a chance to stop being stuck in a groove that was wearing on them and everyone that could hear their song.
Are you serving as a catalyst to help yourself and others over the hump and find a smoother path?  If not, why not?
I can surely say the path that Georgia showed me as a child sure gives life a better spin than any others I have seen. I hope I can
always take the spin that lets me seem as if I am on the mountain in a field of wildflowers.