relearning

by Alanna

I started writing a nice blog sometime early last week I think. It was about lingering, and the way that baby girl makes me slow down and just be. Open my eyes and breathe in the world, thank God for it and every precious moment I have with her. I never got to finish or post that blog, but it was just as well.

Last Saturday we took our first trip out of the house since her birth, and that night I came down with a high fever. I've spent the last 5 days in bed, with no energy to read or check e-mail. The exception was the trip we made to the emergency wing of Lutheran hospital, where I was hooked up to IVs for an hour and gave away lots of blood to the doctors so they could check all kinds of things. (And no- there's hardly anything wrong with me. And yes- I do feel that hospitals and doctors alike tend to overreact to a fever). Baby girl slept peacefully in her dad's arms for hours. I got sent home with antibiotics. My husband made me a little schedule of the 5 things I need to do every 2-6 hours, depending. Between taking pills and doing hot and cold compresses, I try to sleep and nurse the baby and even occasionally eat food myself.

I've been grumpy a lot. I cried a few times, got impatient with the baby, impatient with my husband, impatient with myself, impatient with God for not healing me faster. Just when I was starting to feel recovered from giving birth, I felt like I was back to square one. Stuck in my dark bedroom, helpless and weak. Winter arrived while I've been in bed. All my high talk of gratitude and gifts and lingering was just talk. Too easy because life was beautiful and the sun was shining. Nursing wasn't too hard, I hadn't been really sick in years. But accept infections and weakness as a gift? I refused it.  Refused to accept pain and chills as from Him. And when your fist is closed tight, no good thing can be placed in it.

I got a card from my dear friend here (glittersmallworld.blogspot.com), with these convicting words "so thankful we are seeing his gifts so clearly." Oh but my heart is ugly these days, and my eyes all tight shut like the curtains in my dark room. Then a few hours later, a phone call. Someone who just had spinal cord surgery, telling me how thankful she was for time spent in a neck brace in bed, unable to do anything. Because she listened to the Bible on her ipod, and God taught her and blessed her so much. And me? Crying over a simple infection. Using pain as an excuse for all kinds of unlove toward my family. 

So by God's grace I turned over my tight fist and opened my palm and breathed thank You God for this. Thank You Jesus for this infection. For being bound to my bed for days. For my husband's patience with me. For my baby girl's smiles. For being gifted with a family at all. For my eyes that still open and my hands that still turn and my lungs that still breathe air. Why do I wake in the morning and take all this for granted? My dear friend told me that if we prayed more often for daily bread, we would be more thankful and see more answers to prayers.  I don't want to lose sight of this- 'small' gifts that aren't small at all. I feel that all my words and ramblings always come back to this. I am so very unworthy. My Father is astoundingly good.