Unforced Rhythms of Grace

A week and a bit after my surgery I went to my family doctor to have my staples removed. We were talking about going back to work and I mentioned that they didn’t really want me to be there if I was sick. For some reason it was important to her that she correct me. She said, “You are not sick. The sick part of you was taken out. You are recovering.” Today I was at a women’s conference at my church. The topic was around the area of emotional healing. Near the end of the day I started thinking about that appointment. I thought about the way God heals. So many times in my life I have wondered if I was okay, normal, whether the fact that I still struggled meant that God had not healed me. Today God told me, “I have removed the sick part of you. Now you are recovering.”

I have noticed that in the past couple of days I have had a general sense of dissatisfaction with everything. I am grumpy. Everything pisses me off. I am having trouble keeping the little stuff in perspective. As I was waiting for the bus to take me home (and on the bus too) I kept going over the latest reason why I feel like I have been overlooked. The sane part of me kept trying to let go but I couldn’t. Do you ever feel like you need to make a decision about something but you are not sure what the question is? I feel that way. I want to start changing everything and adjusting to see if I can find a way to feel better. Yet I know I have to be patient. God will show me what He is after. I am finding it hard to be patient…

I already wrote about waiting in the hallway of the St. Boniface Emergency . I was eventually moved to a room in the emergency department. It is really weird to be lying in a bed waiting for emergency surgery. The surgeon had talked to me in the hallway and was very open to me asking questions. The problem is that I couldn’t think of any questions. And really thinking of any questions seemed sort of redundant. I knew instinctively that I was very sick. The appendix needed to come out. I never really thought about dying. I was more afraid of being really sick. In hindsight I realized that I live with an assurance that I never really understood before. I feel grounded that I am going to heaven. I remember hearing the testimony of someone who had an experience on 9/11 where he became very close to dying. He was completely sure that he would go to heaven. He had no fear of dying. He only asked that it wouldn’t hurt very much. I had thought to myself, I hope I feel that way i...

Around 5pm the doctor came and told me that I needed surgery. What he actually said was that the CT confirmed the problem was with my appendix and that generally required surgery. They didn’t have a surgeon at the Grace so they were going to transfer me to another hospital. I took that to mean I was having surgery that evening. If they weren’t pretty sure I needed surgery they wouldn’t go to the effort. Somehow the doctor’s attitude about the surgery made me feel pretty calm. The nurse hadn’t been able to reach anyone. We held off on calling others until I found out where I was going. Then the nurse came back and said it looked like I was going to St. Boniface hospital. Within moments the paramedics were there. The nurse wheeled my bed over to the phone so I could leave a message for my friend. She dialed the number and handed me the handset. When I couldn’t reach to put the phone back on the cradle the paramedic helped me. As I was being wheeled out of the room the nurse w...

For the first few years after my Mom died I ignored Mother’s Day. Well I didn’t totally ignore it I guess. I knew better than to try and make plans with friends. I didn’t go out because I knew restaurants would be packed. I reasoned that Mother’s Day just wasn’t a day for me anymore. I managed to do that for five Mother’s Days in a row. Then I started going to church. You need to understand that when I first started going to church I didn’t miss a single Sunday for a year and a half or something. I was baptized the weekend before Mother’s Day. It was a really exciting time in my faith walk. However it was that weekend I realized that the church would acknowledge Mother’s Day. For the first time I didn’t want to go to church. I dreaded it the whole week – even though I was freshly baptized. Each year I ponder whether I am going to church or not. The general stand up if you are a Mom so we can applaud you makes me feel empty and like a loser. I am not a Mother, I don’t have ...

I haven’t posted in a while. There are a couple of people who have even asked me to post. In the world of blogging I have noticed that there are some common reasons that people who are active bloggers don’t post. The first reason is that their life circumstances have changed and they are too busy during this season to post. The second reason is that there is some block to their posting. Something they are not ready to talk about. I am more in the second category. The thing is that there are many other topics I could talk about but for some reason I keep coming back to this. I made the excuse that people were probably sick of hearing about the appendectomy. I mean seriously. It is only an appendectomy. The problem is that I don’t have much else going on. So what else can I post about? I don’t have any big secret that I am holding close to my chest. However some of the truth about this experience has been so raw that I have been scared to even think about it – never mind writ...