In Sickness and In Health

I am such a baby when it comes to illness. I mean, I have given birth to four children, two of them with no pain medication whatsoever, and yet the common cold leaves me limp and lifeless in bed.

The beginning of the school year might as well be tagged as, "The children go to school and Mom gets sick." They bring home all the school children germs that my body has had three months to forget about, and inevitably I am the first to fall.

So here I am in my stuffy headed foggy world, and God is making sure that I know that there aren't going to be free-to-take-time-off sick days in my 12 month commitment to Him. Because man did I get blasted today when I decided to use my germ-y status to say No when He wanted me to say Yes.

So, here I am, keeping it real. Because I surely don't think I would tell this story to the world otherwise. But I don't want to paint a "I accepted God's challenge and now my life is rosy" picture, when the reality is that I accepted God's challenge, my life has gotten so much better, but man it's hard sometimes.

Today was insane. I didn't get to go to my Bible study this morning because I wasn't feeling well. My baby is battling the same cold I am, and those of you who have had children know how much fun a 17 month old who feels awful is. My phone rang constantly, and even though I did finally lay down and pass out for a couple hours, that time was interrupted by about 541,258 things that apparently needed my attention right then and there or the world was going to explode. So I was frazzled already when 2:41 hit - that magic time where my oldest children start streaming home from school and life goes into hyper-drive.

So just imagine constant chaos from 2:41 until 4:18. At 4:18, Kahlan came home. I quickly got off the phone with my friend because I could see the tears brimming in her eyes. As I was trying to help her work through a big disappointment she'd had that day, three of my children asked me nonsense questions, my mother in law knocked on my front door, and the phone rang.

And God said, "Be still."

And instead of saying, "Yes, God," I think I did something unladylike...like growling.

Instead of listening to Him, instead of walking away, or taking a deep breath, or just praying that He would carry me through the next three minutes, I walked out my front door.

Barefoot.

Oh, and did I mention the fact that right before I left I said to my mother in law, "You take care of the kids, I'm done being a mom"?

Yeah. Not pretty.

So I walked down the street with no shoes on, wincing as each little rock dug into my skin. And each time I flinched I thought, "That was for saying No."

So if you happen to live next to a park and happened to be doing your dishes while standing in front of your kitchen window, that strange lady who was sitting in the grass picking leaves apart was me. No, I am not trying to stalk other people's children. I was just being disobedient to my Father.

I wasn't in the park for very long. I can at least say that I felt God's presence very strongly as I sat studying the grass in front of me, and I knew that He wanted me to go home. So I sucked up my pride, said Yes, and walked home.

And it all worked out. Steve was home when I got here, he didn't think I was insane, my mother in law told me that she knew that the combination of sickness and stress was what had made me implode (versus thinking I was crazy, or a bad mother, as I imagined), and I was able to finish helping Kahlan without scarring her for life.

I listened, and He helped me. It certainly would have been much better had I listened the first time, but it wasn't as bad as it would have been if I'd said No the second time. That was another good lesson in the long line of lessons He has been teaching me in the past eleven days or so.

I kind of hoped that the woman washing dishes would have come out to see what kind of crazy woman sits alone in the grass at a park. I was looking forward to telling her that I was crazy...about God.

But maybe that will be a "Yes" moment for another day...