It so easily happens! We start to lose sight of all of God’s blessings and want to take the reins again. I could see that happening to me as I began to resist the time I was in…to resent not being able to move….to want to complain more readily than sing His praises for all He’d done. The human condition persists.
It was great to get a “good report” from the doctor…or at least, as good as I could surmise. He’s pretty poker-faced and tight-lipped when I try to ascertain where I stand in the spectrum of things. He finally gave in to saying I was an “A+” at this post-op phase, so I let it go at that.
Even better than the visit was the time I got to spend with Mary Flaherty, who, like Lani, barely knows me and yet made the tiem and effort to serve me (in fact, she is mentoring Lani right now so she is effectively the patron saint of our small group :). She got me there very early, was careful to make sure I was supported at every move, and even invited me back to their beautiful beach-view home in pacifica when we returned before Shirley was back from her errands. It was a great opportunity to share in one another’s lives more…something we sadly just don’t do in the normal course of things.
That is one big learning from this surgery: that the “normal course of things” squeezes out so much opportunity for blessings: taking time to be with others, serving one another, and – for me – being able to RECEIVE the gifts of others and the gift of “non-productive” time. Lord, let me retain these ever-so-important lessons.
(the other interesting learning being that, even when life is UN-scheduled, we can still choose to squeeze God out by a busy and distracted mind….ah we do need His help so much!!)
Otherwise I would have been mind-bendingly bored to tears with all of the ‘normal’ programming television has to offer us these days. Instead, I was able to finally see some checks and balances restored to the U.S. government for the first time in six years. Remember those? We learned about them in elementary school, but we have lacked them for a while. Nice to have them back.