As I sat on the stretcher with a grimace splattered across my face, and as she sat at the side of the stretcher relentlessly jamming a needle in and out of my calf, I started to get the inkling that every day life is not always compatible with the faint of heart. Am I really sitting here in this cubical choosing this procedure? And how come the paper work didn't describe this intense pain that felt as though you had been hooked up to an electric probe? And was I really sitting here listening to her describe their last Disney vacation and all its hour after hour small world fun while she jabbed the "electricity" on again and again? (she's delightful for sure, I'm just stressing the surreal moment.) Dry needling, also incompatible with the faint of heart.
Each day we wake up, rolling out of bed (some more energized than others), not sure what we will find on the other side of the bedroom door. We may even have it all mapped out. Shower, breakfast bagels, makeup, morning commute, premium parking, meeting number one, paperwork number 45, phone call number 15 all before lunch. But just as sure as you get the first 3 hours inked on to the memo pad, you inevitably find something unexpected barrels its way into your moment. It's a constant up and down and right and left and anyone with any sense of type A strategic personality will quickly find themselves prey to the mayhem. And even those whimsical NON type A (how do you do it?) persons find themselves being pulled involuntarily into another unexpected moment of life. You may mind a little less, because you didn't have a to-do list to begin with compared to those of us who strategize every waking hour, but we all find the unexpected moments unsettling.
I started this blog as a memorial to my now mastectomized breasts. They are gone, but never forgotten (ok, well by me anyway). They've gracefully, rather not so gracefully, been replaced by two almost endearing imposters. And that storm of life is now rather a rainy mist of days gone by. Temporarily anyway. But wouldn't you know it? Just when you think you have one storm off the radar, one glance on the horizon and you see the assembly of cumulonimbus fluffs. You quickly gather your wits enough to know opposing forces are beginning to clash. Drop, drop, drop. Plop, plop, plop. Scanning the horizon for shelter and quickly finding it's 25 raindrops too late. You are smack dab in the middle of your next storm. If it's not mastectomy, it's dry needling for combative calves. If it's not unemployment, it's struggling to get all 3 kids to the right place at the right time on any given day. It's exhaustion, it's presumed failure, it's a diagnosis, it's circumstance. All of them are life's storms and we are all simply learning to swim instead of sink.
I'm finding we are drastically over critical of ourselves in those moments. We hold up an imaginary-poorly calibrated-designed by Mrs Perfect- measuring stick which should be set on fire and thrown out with yesterday's trash. Yet we cling to it with every fiber of our being trying to measure up to something we certainly can't be every moment of every day. Did we pray enough? Did we cry too much? Did we fumble at every yard line? And then we call ourselves "failure" for not doing or being enough. I recall those moments in mastectomy where I wondered if I let it get too much of me. Did I give my natural boobs too much credit? Was this really that big of a deal? Well, what we need to do is dump every inch of that doubting measuring stick in the trash for above all else, His grace is enough!
I want to reclaim life not as we know it and design it to be, but as God knows it and designs us to be. I want to swim in every storm not with perfection or accolades, but with faith and grace with strong strokes when I can and doggie paddle with a sideline of true friendship when I can't. Doggie paddles still get me to the finish line, right? And I want to claim God's provision in every storm and come out on the other side a little better than I was going in. I'm choosing to swim. I'm choosing to equip myself with tools that make my life compatible with any storm. I may look like a wet labradoodle paddling his heart out, but I know a labradoodle will jump in every single time and come out smiling and wagging his tail!
So I don't know what the next blog page will bring, but I do know I want to continue with transparency where I can. God has brought me so much closer to many of you through this journey. And he has brought me closer to him as I shared those moments with you. Right now we are in a moment of deciding whether to sell our house or stay put (see previous blog post to catch up) and also trying to figure out the timing of that (if we decide to move) in light of another surgery coming up this summer. This has been a very challenging month for us as we seek to hear his plan for us as he grows our hearts for becoming "less". I'm hopeful we have it all figured out soon...for this too does not feel compatible with the faint of heart. It is tugging our pride, greed, and comfort in so many directions and challenging me to faithfully sit still and listen. It's a storm that needed to take place and will no doubt prepare me for something else on the horizon, but until all is made clear, we sit. And we listen. And very soon I know we will swim.
