End of February Reflection
thankful March is here
Yesterday after church we went to the park as a family. It was a beautiful 65 degree day and we were all itching to get outside. The boys biked circles around the park—Auden learning on his pedal bike and George on his balance bike—and I sat on a picnic blanket with Tommy on the grass. Rob took turns between sitting with me, taking pictures on his new camera, and going over to help whenever Auden got stuck and needed help pushing off. (He’s figuring out how to ride a bike, but whenever he stops he needs help getting going again.)
Tommy was content to play with my shoe (or the grass or my hair) for the hour, so I just sat back and enjoyed the sun’s warmth on my skin, basking in the day, basking in the wellness.
February was brutal for us. Though the shortest month, it felt like the longest. Basically since Christmas, our family has been pummeled with illness. Colds, random fevers, stomach flu, RSV, pink eye, ear infections…you name it, and we got it. On top of that, Rob has been recovering from surgery and I’ve been dealing with daily headaches. So it was a doozy of a time. I think I tend to take health for granted until I don’t have it.
The headaches took me by surprise. They started all of a sudden and were, some days, debilitating. I’m still dealing with them, but thankfully they now are more mild than severe and for the most part, ignorable. The neurologist suspects a late-onset CSF leak from the epidural I had a year ago, though I am still waiting to get some testing to confirm this. I’m in a bit of a holding pattern until I can get that done.
Last week, I was feeling so discouraged by all the general un-wellness, that I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned for hours until finally I slipped into prayer. I don’t know why, up until that point, I’d been so hesitant to go to God with it all. Sure, I’d asked others to pray for me, but I hadn’t prayed much myself.
Maybe I just didn’t want God to think of me as a whiner, I don’t know. Or maybe I doubted that He cared. Whatever the case, it felt so good to finally just lay it all at the feet of Jesus. I prayed for a long, long time. I held everything up in my hands—the sickness, the headaches, the surgery recovery—and gave it to Him. And as I was praying, I felt an immense amount of peace wash over me. It may sound cheesy, but it’s true. In that moment, I felt God’s assuring presence and for the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel alone with it all.
You are not alone. I’m with you. I’ve got you.
It’s in moments like these that I am so, so thankful for my faith. Because life is not always easy. We are not guaranteed good health all of the time. And it’s when we are worn out, crumpled down, weary, and discouraged that we really need the hope of Jesus. At least, that’s true for me.
And so, yesterday, sitting out in the sunshine, I felt so much gratitude. Gratitude for the beautiful day, gratitude that my family was feeling better, gratitude for the start of a new month. Most of all, gratitude for my faith that grounds me and guides me and gives me hope.
