I am not normally awake at 3 AM anymore. This was going to be a FB post, but I thought it would go faster if I sat at the keyboard and typed.
A couple of years ago, I was very angry with God. There was a lot going on in my life that was not great. We were struggling as a family. We had a lot of illness. There was just a lot of external circumstances that weren't great.
I spent a lot of time feeling sorry for myself. I spent a lot of time shaking my fist at God and asking,
"why us?"
Over the past few months, as I have set about trying to change the way I think, I have come to discover that life is about 50/50. Half is good, half is not so good. I have worked hard at taking my emotions out of play when it comes to eating. I have learned how to work on the thoughts that are negative. Sometimes, it means I just let them go. Other times, I have to combat negative thoughts with truth.
In any case, our lives in general have gotten less chaotic. We are not living without problems, but the problems we have today aren't awful.
I have stayed up late a few nights lately, mostly to read. I love to read a good book, but I'm awful at pacing myself. John Sandford novels, in particular, take hold of me and preclude me from putting them down.
Last night, to remedy the previous night's late hour for bedtime, I went to bed early. I was asleep before 10 PM. I was excited to get a good night's sleep.
It's a busy week. Bekah, who dances with Summers Academy of Dance, is performing in the Nutcracker this weekend. She has been preparing for months and is very excited. We have drilled into her the importance of going to bed early and getting plenty of rest. The other three kids all got diagnosed with strep over the weekend. She seemed to sidestep that and I breathed a sigh of relief.
Alas, though, she sidestepped the strep but has fallen to the stomach flu. She woke me at 1 AM to tell me that she had thrown up.
In the past, this would have set off a sequence of events and feelings. I would have been angrily posting on FB or messaging someone or feeling frustrated.
Not one of those things happened.
I navigated over to a group on FB that is one of my tribes of prayer warriors. I posted there asking for prayers. Brian woke up and we prayed together. I didn't freak out or get angry or anything. I surveyed the hallway bathroom where she had missed the toilet. I shut the door and went back to bed.
Then I realized, dried-up vomit is harder to clean than new vomit. So I went downstairs, gathered supplies and cleaned the bathroom. While I was on my knees scrubbing, it occurred to me that I could be praying for people, so I did. After getting everything cleaned up, I realized I didn't have any heavy whipping cream for my coffee in the morning. Brian is headed to Kenosha for a meeting first thing.
So at 2:50 AM, I headed to Jewel. I grabbed some flowers for Bekah, in case she misses her performance this weekend. I remembered that I have a friend celebrating a birthday on Saturday. I got her a card and before I left Jewel, I mailed it off.
I am not typically a sunshine, rainbows and unicorn girl. I have been crabby and short-tempered this week. I don't normally see the glass as half full.
But here's the thing. I feel confident that she will perform this weekend. I have faith that this is a short-acting bug. At the same time, I have absolute peace that if she doesn't perform, it's going to be okay. There will be so many opportunities for her to be in the Nutcracker in the coming years.
I feel this overwhelming sense of peace that I can only attribute to God. I don't see a point in getting all riled up. I hope no one else in the cast falls ill. I hope I can post on Sunday that another Nutcracker is in the books.
I had to write this because I am so baffled by all of this. I feel almost like I'm having an out-of-body experience. This is not fundamentally who I am, and yet I am so comfortable feeling like this.
I am not even sure I will feel like this in 12 hours (or like 4, when my alarm goes off). It might be a very rough day, where I am crabby and short-tempered and get bad news. But I'm not going to live there. I'm going to live in the feelings that I'm having now.
If you're reading this, please say a prayer for Bekah's speedy recovery. I cleaned every surface in the bathroom and every other surface that she could have touched. I have washed my hands and realize there's nothing more I can do but wait and see. Thank you for taking the time to read this and for praying!
