Having experienced the life shattering chaos that one's family undergoes when someone survives a life threatening stroke, the spinning, turning, twirling and falling that happens to one's marriage and family, can certainly make you feel like the only thing normal in your life is that of the setting on your dryer in your laundry room labelled "normal".
Balancing marriage, family, work and ministry can certainly feel unsettling at best and disruptively disturbing and worst. On your best days you may look - and even feel - as though you have it all together. But on those bad days, where the world starts spinning out of control, you may find yourself questioning everything - all that you see and certainly everything you cannot see.
Faith seems hard to find on those days.
Peace is hidden from your heart and soul.
Joy falls by the wayside into utter disbelief that the world will never make sense again.
There are other times, when you feel those things - and rightfully so - but the joy never ceases. Why is that? Resiliency is what I think makes the difference. How does one become resilient? Can you decide to be resilient or is it something you are born with?
I don't have the answers to those questions, but I can tell you one thing that helps me to keep the twirling fun - LAUGHTER.
An amazing person in my life once said..."if it is funny later, it is funny now" and I have chosen to live by that rule ever since I heard it. And let me tell you, there are so many things that have happened post stroke that are absolutely absurd, you cannot NOT laugh later, so we choose to laugh in the middle of the chaos while falling.
Take our recent trip to Colorado...
My husband was not feeling well on the day that we were traveling to Colorado. We doctored him up the best we could, but the situation was unnerving to say the least. We arrived in Denver and in the chaos of tending to his needs, we managed to get off the plane, pick up our luggage, get in the bus to the rental car lot, pack the car with our luggage, drive an hour and a half in a snow storm to pick up our skis and groceries for the next 12 hours, drive to the cabin, unload the car in the snow, only to realize that the MOST IMPORTANT of all the bags we packed for my husband was left on the plane.
Now, you will often hear me say "You can't make this stuff up!" And it is so true. His medicines, cell phone, iPad, - everything he needed for the trip for his own entertainment as well as his well being was in that bag!
I stood there for a moment, shook my head, said a prayer of thanksgiving that we found it and no one had taken it, and then said well, you can't make this stuff up and we have a new story to tell!
Resilient? You bet!
I choose to remember that this world is not really that shaky, because despite the spinning, turning, twirling and even falling - my God is sovereign. He holds me steady. He has a sense of humor. And I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that He will take care of all my needs - even when it means He has to protect the precious cargo that I left in the hands of the airlines instead of having my head on straight to remember all three suitcases, three - not two - back packs, two sets of ski boots, a cane, two teenagers and my husband in the first place!
So is this normal? It is to me. I keep bouncing along, looking at the world as fraught with danger, but knowing that most of the time, the God of the universe is spinning these unbelievable stories into my blessings and let's face it - favor ain't fair - and I am ok with that. I will keep spinning, turning, twirling and resiliently laughing with joy. I am safe in my Father's arms...even when I fall down.
No comments:
Post a Comment