Maureen

I'd like to tell you about an extraordinary lady. I met Maureen when I was working at Courage Center in Minneapolis as an occupational therapist. When I first saw Maureen come into the therapy room, I knew that I was going to enjoy working with her.

She told me that I could tell you all a bit about her, and I'm so glad that she did.

Maureen was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, more commonly known as brittle bone disease. She was also legally blind. As she grew up, she would get fractures from doing normal, everyday activities. She has had hundreds of fractures over the years.

She was in a freak accident in which she was in an elevator in her electric wheelchair. The door opened but the floor of the elevator was a good distance above the floor of the building. She wheeled out, not knowing the circumstances, and hit her head on the cement. This caused injuries similar to what happens to babies with shaken baby syndrome and she became totally blind in four days. This was especially devestaing since 10 years earlier she had had eye surgery which took her from bare light perception to almost 2200 vision allowing her to read, watch tv and use her eye sight for getting around.

Than two years later she was in an automobile accident in which she sustained multiple fractures and a spinal cord injury.

So this lady comes down the hall driving an electric wheelchair with a joystick in her right hand and guiding herself with a white cane that you usually see an ambulatory blind person use. It was quite a sight, let me tell you!

I soon found out that Maureen loved the Lord and was a very talented singer and song writer. When I met her, we were addressing some strategies and adaptive equipment options to assist her with the loss of some function in her arm which was making it difficult for her to use her wheelchair joystick, etc. and to try to figure out a way for her to play her guitar and piano again. I loved every minute of our time together.

We actually went to a Women Of God conference together and she wrote the song that I sang to my husband on our wedding day. Maybe I'll have this song available for you all to hear someday, but for now, I wanted to let you hear this song of Maureen's that a couple friends and I sang as a trio last summer.

For those of you that would like the words, here they are:

Only, only by Your grace, Lord, can we be redeemed.
Only, only thru Your blood, Lord, can we be made clean.

Chorus:
There's no other way but through Jesus,
No other way we can be saved.
No other hope we can rely on,
Jesus is the only way.

Only, only when we're broken, can we be made whole.
And only, only when we're empty, can we be made full.

Bridge:
We have tried to fill ourselves, but we are never satisfied.
We have tried to lead ourselves, but we are lost without our Guide.
When we stand in our own strength, we just fall upon our face,
For it's only by Your Spirit and it's only by Your grace.

"Only" Copyright 1996 Out Of The Door Music. Used with permission. If you like this song and want the music or want to hear more of Maureen's compositions contact maureensmusic@comcast.net.