My Lent Project: Day 19

Instead of giving UP something for Lent, I’m giving THANKS for the many blessings of life.  Here’s what I’m feeling incredibly thankful for today . . .


Home.


Safe travels.


Family.


Memories.


A smooth flight.


A good book to read.


Luggage that arrives on time.


Surprisingly light traffic.


My own shower.


My own towels.


My own potty.


My own bed.


My own pillow.


Alcohol for sanitizing.


A loving husband who accommodates my OCD.


Getting things back where they belong.


Clean clothes.


That extra day of Spring Break.


Love.


Jesus, who can take what is broken and make it whole. 

IT'S ALIVE!!!

And by it, I mean me! 

I’m home, appendix free and with my brand new semi colon.  There is still a lot of pain and swelling, but I have never been more grateful to be home in my entire thirty-eight years of life.

Home is nothing short of pure bliss right now, and I promise to never complain about my kitchen again. 

Okay.  I promise to never complain about my kitchen again at least until the end of the month.

Here’s what I need to tell you about hospitals; (I used a semi colon there just for irony – thanks A!)

There are many wonderful people inside hospitals.  

Hospitals are one of the most horrible places on earth.

I spent three and a half days in a highly reputable Atlanta area hospital, 24 hours of which I was so strung out on anesthesia and pain meds I slept and vomited my way through them.  And I NEVER WANT TO GO BACK.

We have excellent healthcare available in America, and I am fully aware of the lack of healthcare many people face in developing countries.  My surgery and consequent hospital stay were in a facility I’m incredibly blessed to have such easy access to, and there were hundreds of others there receiving quality care at the same time I was.  The doctors and nurses were trained professionals, educated in some of the most widely respected medical schools in the world.  I had my own recovery room, complete with a bed, full bathroom, and a television, and I had access to any medicines or health products I could have needed at the push of a button.  Someone came in each day to clean my room, and offered to use only soap and water because of my nausea.  Someone came in each day to deliver my liquid only meals, and didn’t say a thing when he had to remove them an hour later untouched.  Someone delivered me one foot away from the car door in a wheelchair upon my discharge. 

I. Am. So. Grateful.

And yet, I NEVER WANT TO GO BACK.

I know there are children who will not get a meal today, liquid or otherwise.  I know there are babies who won’t get the medicines they need.  I know they are people who haven’t showered in three days and feel as disgusting as I did but won’t get to shower for how knows how long because they don’t have a shower or a house or food or a bed or a television or a hospital.  Please know I KNOW these things and I am so grateful. 

But y’all, hospitals are truly horrible places, and after three and a half days in one, I think America can do better.

Hospitals are supposed to be places of healing.

How can healing come when medicines are being pumped into a body that can’t take them?  When the patient, in fact, has to be the one to suggest perhaps all the heavy-duty pain meds on a continuous drip into a body that hasn’t consumed food in days might be what is causing all the nausea?  When the patient, who thankfully was coherent enough to speak and think for herself (not always the case in hospitals) has to ask if we can just try something by mouth instead?  (Advil is working just fine, my friends, and the nausea was gone almost as soon as that pain pump was removed – I really should have gone to med school, don’t you think?)

How can healing come when one person enters a room where a patient is trying to rest every couple of hours to listen to her heart and bowel sounds (it sounds like a hot tub down there in case your curious - the neighbors can hear my bowel sounds right now without a stethoscope), and then another person comes in every couple of hours, BUT NEVER AT THE SAME TIME, to take the patient’s pulse, blood pressure, and temperature?  Thinking maybe that could be the same person, since the entire process would then take a total of three minutes instead of two minutes but everything would be done at once, instead of every stinking hour throughout the entire stinking night? 

Just a thought.

Along those same lines, they could use a few more classes on time management and multitasking in nursing school, in my opinion.  Please be aware that this very humble opinion comes from someone totally and completely inadequate as a caregiver who could never be a nurse in her life and thank you to that wonderful man who held the barf bag for me and cheered for me every time I vomited into it like I had just finished a marathon.  Still, I’m pretty sure there is someone out there who could train nurses to be able to get both a bandaid and a cup of ice at the same time, preferably within less than seventy minutes.  (Just so you understand I'm not trying to be ungrateful - this was not a one time incident - this happened with every nurse, every time, with everything I needed.)

How can healing come when the food given to someone who just had almost a foot of her colon removed is full of artificial colors, flavors, preservatives and even sweeteners?  Seriously?  Italian Ice and orange Jello for someone who wants to get healthy and never have to go back to the hospital – are you kidding me?

I'm home, and although I know it is wrong, I am finding great joy in my circumstances today.  I’ve showered.  I’ve brushed my teeth and combed my hair and even had a cup of coffee with my creamer that has nothing whatsoever artificial in it.  I’ve taken a few more Advil and I’m resting comfortably in a chair in my home, and I am so very grateful.  There are people in downtown Atlanta who didn’t get to leave that hospital yesterday.  There are people all across the world who don’t have a hospital and need one.

I will remember the man who held the bag and cheered for me as I threw up into it.  I will remember the woman who offered to clean my room with only soap and water.  I will remember the nurse who told me I looked so much better when I could only have looked so much worse.  I will remember the boy who delivered my food and encouraged me to eat my grits. I will remember how lucky I am to have access to doctors with the amazing abilities to provide a higher quality of life for me.  And when I look at the six incisions across my stomach, I will forever remember what a true blessing it is to have wonderful friends who cared enough to pray for me, and a family to come home to when the worst was over.

Thank you, God, for hospitals.  Thank you for all the nurses and doctors who work in them.  Thank you for those unseen in the hospitals – the ones who prepare food and deliver equipment and test blood and stock rooms.  Thank you for medicine.  Thank you for life.  Thank you for friends, for family, and today, maybe more than any day I’ve ever known, thank you, God,

 for home.

Appreciating Georgia (Both of Them)

Dog ownership gets more educational with each passing day. Georgia is not even nine months old, but she's like this nutty professor who shows up to class thirty minutes late with broken glasses, a crooked bowtie, and plaid pants four inches too short, yet somehow leaves you with a nugget of wisdom you'll treasure for the rest of time.

I wouldn't say our doodle puppy has a whole lot of common sense.  Georgia isn't brilliant in any obvious ways.  She plays with bumblebees on the back deck, thinks she's capable of running at top speed on hardwood floors and then stopping on a dime (you really should see that trick), and believes everyone on the face of the planet wants her to lick them.   One of her most interesting habits though, is her ability to play follow the leader. 

Georgia follows me.  If I walk into the bathroom, so does she.  If I sit down at the kitchen table, she sits beside my chair.  When I go upstairs to put laundry away, Georgia simply must come along. 

Georgia knows her people.  And her greatest desire is to stay close to them.  Which, as usual, got me thinking . . .

For almost forty years, my entire world has centered on a tiny patch of earth in suburban Atlanta. I have actually resided within a ten square mile radius of Gwinnett County since the day I was born.  I did go to college seventy-five miles away, but I’m not sure that counts.  When you add it up, I was only in Athens for about thirty months of my life, and sadly, I spent most weekends coming home to do laundry instead of enjoying the purple “punch” being served out of fraternity house trashcans all over campus.   

Most of the time, I consider my native status to be unique.  I enjoy the label of homegrown girl, and I love seeing people I know almost everywhere I go because I’ve never lived anywhere but Atlanta, Georgia.  When I was at Northside Hospital preparing to give birth to our first child, I informed our labor and delivery nurse that I had been born in the same hospital.  She was astonished.  Moments like that make me feel pride in my roots. 

Occasionally, however, my pride is replaced with disgust. 

Sometimes, it doesn’t seem at all special that I’ve lived in the same location all my life.  It seems pathetic and short-sided and entirely uninteresting.  Sometimes, I go online to look up real estate in Manhattan simply for the thrill of thinking about life in a place that doesn’t have over seventy streets with the name “Peachtree” in them. 

I realize Atlanta has a lot to offer.  It's a fantastic city in many ways and a wonderful place to raise a family.  The housing prices are among the lowest in the country, there are opportunities to experience a variety of cultural and sporting events all over the city, and even with the recent blip of a floundering economy, the job market has been booming for decades. 

Atlanta has convenient proximity to a multitude of interesting adventures.  In ten minutes, I can be at any number of local parks where my children can play, ride bikes, or go fishing.  I can drive twenty minutes south to shop in boutiques bearing the names of designers whose clothing has graced fashion runways for years.  (Notice I didn’t say I do.  I said I could, if my income bracket went up a few notches.)  In half an hour, I can be lounging on the back of a boat on Lake Lanier.  Never mind that on the boat next to me, there is a sunburned woman wearing a bikini two sizes too small dirty dancing with her boyfriend while funneling a beer.  If I drive an hour north, I can go hiking and camping in the Great Smoky Mountains, and in less than five hours by car, I can frolic in the waves of the Atlantic Ocean.  

There are other reasons to love Atlanta.  The city is full of jogging trails, playgrounds, golf courses, ice-skating rinks, bowling alleys, frozen yogurt establishments, malls, movie theatres, beautifully landscaped subdivisions where every road ends in a cul-de-sac, and twenty million ALTA teams. There are hundreds of restaurants featuring food from all over the planet and you rarely have to drive more than a few minutes to find the motherland Target.  True, traffic can occasionally wreak havoc on your plans and you have to know where to look to find the truly “charming” areas of the city, but most of the time, I am aware of how lucky I am to make my home in Atlanta.  There are people in the world who live without running water and paved roads and democracy.  I live in a great city.  Still, although my husband would never agree to the idea of packing up the family and moving to Soho, sometimes, I’m completely open to the idea. 

Sometimes, I think I need a change of scenery, a change of pace, a change of perspective.  I wonder if it would be good for me to spend a little time missing a few of the conveniences of which I’ve grown so accustomed.  Perhaps if I had a chance to depart from the only home I’ve ever known, I could one day return to it with a greater sense of appreciation for all it has to offer.

Maybe, if I had to squeeze my family into a four-hundred square foot apartment with a kitchen the size of a closet, I would stop wishing for marble countertops and new appliances in my current kitchen.  Maybe, if I had to walk ten blocks to find a patch of grass, I would enjoy the half-acre lot I live on now instead of coveting the house down the street on three acres.  You know, the one with the marble countertops and new appliances.  And the hand scraped hickory floors.  And the mudroom.   And the . . .

Okay, that’s enough of sharing the whole “where my treasure is there my heart will be also.”  Clearly, my heart has up and relocated to a fabulous new address, and is now unable to pay even a small percentage of the mortgage.

The thing about home though, is that it really isn’t about a house, or a yard, or even an apartment overlooking Central Park.  And when I contemplate the idea of moving away, there are anchors around my soul that keep me rooted right where I am.  Their faces fill my mind when I think about starting over in a new place, and I realize . . . my place is with them. 

My place is with my family.  My place is with my friends.  My place . . .  is with my people.  The people who know me and care for me and love me in spite of the fact that my heart is so flawed it spends more time longing for Carrera marble countertops than it spends longing for world peace. 

Home. 

It’s where your people are, and as Georgia well knows, you should always stay close to your people.   My people are in Atlanta, and for now, a brownstone in Soho will just have to wait.  


***  After reading this, I suggest you cue up "Home" by Phillip Phillips and dance around your kitchen without spending even one millisecond thinking about Carerra marble countertops.  Oh, and stay as far away from Lake Lanier as possible.

Every Day (And Twice On Sundays)

I don’t think my friend intended to be profound when she made the comment she did.  She’s far too humble to think of herself as someone who makes important statements on a regular basis, though she does, with both ease and grace.  Still, her comment struck me in such a way that I’ve thought about it every day since. 

We were in my kitchen surrounded by other women, sipping wine and sharing summer stories.  Our conversation turned to houses, and I began complaining about the fact that I can’t seem to find contentment in my house no matter what.  I always see the things I want to change and I’m constantly striving to make our home more beautiful, more updated, more functional.  I want every single part of my home to be perfect, but I don’t have the budget to do everything I’d like to do, and even the things I can do can’t be done all at once.  So our refinished floors looked great for a few years while we saved up to renovate our bathroom, and now our master bath looks awesome but our hardwoods need to be ripped out and replaced.  I told my friend I couldn’t understand why God wasn’t providing the contentment I’d been asking him to provide.  I was being sarcastic . . . sort of. And she responded, in her always calm, sweet, and empathetic way, “I know, I know.  It’s a daily renewal, isn’t it?”

A daily renewal.

Daily.  As in . . . every day.

I pray for many things every day, but they usually have to do with the health, safety, and happiness of my family and friends.  Sure, I throw out frequent requests about my desire to feel content in my circumstances, but although I know God cares about my desires – hard to deny that when he gave his one and only son to have a relationship with me – I find it hard to believe he wants to hear about my wish to walk by the chipped travertine in our laundry room without cringing.

The thing is . . . God sees that chipped travertine too, and he knows it bothers me.  I’m guessing he could easily fix it in the middle of the night while I was sleeping and boy wouldn’t I be able to testify that GOD ANSWERS PRAYERS to all those other perfectionists in the world who get the Houzz.com weekly email update and save dozens of photographs to their idea book and who knows how many homeowners and contractors and interior decorators would come to Jesus after they heard my story?!?!?!

Of course, that’s not how God works.  He performs miracles every day . . . every second, in fact, if we just take a look around . . . but repairing tile flooring at 2 am is not likely on his list of miraculous to-dos.

You see, God doesn’t want me to ask Him for help with something that’s bothering me every once in a while.  He doesn’t want me to ask for forgiveness or patience or happiness or contentment or a stainless steel French door refrigerator when the mood strikes me.  God wants to me to come to him every single day for every single thing. 

Daily renewal.

What God wants most is to show us how much he loves us, to show us he is always by our sides, to show us his unrelenting care and concern for our lives.  And since he knew we were sinners and sending his son to die on a cross for our sins wouldn’t be enough to completely convince us of all those things, he designed us with a deep yearning to be in a constant relationship with him.  A relationship of daily renewal.

We can’t simply need God when we’re feeling low.  We can’t need him just when we get stuck or sick or find ourselves in the midst of suffering.  And it’s not enough to go to him only in thanksgiving.  We can’t call out to God simply to praise him for the blessings in our lives when they seem abundant.  

God wants ALL of us, ALL the time. 

He wants to hear from me when I’m low.  He wants to hear from me when I’m stuck or sick or suffering.  He wants to hear from me when all I can do is worship him for his glorious splendor and goodness and mercy and grace.  He even wants to hear from me when I’m asking him, AGAIN, for contentment in a home that doesn’t have the kitchen of my dreams.

When we go to God for daily renewal . . . when we let go of our pride and our busyness and our need to control . . . when we kneel before Him and fully surrender. . . that’s when we share with him our desire to let him work in our lives.  To change our hearts.  To transform us into the people we are meant to be.  People who choose peace and radiate joy.  People who serve others and create love.  

People who reflect Him.

Every day.

 

Romans 12:2

. . . be transformed by the renewing of your mind . . .

Windy City Love

I don’t travel well.  It’s not that I’m scared of flying or get carsick, although I am and I do.  It’s that my fear of . . . contamination, we’ll call it, makes it hard for me to enjoy a trip more than a few miles out of my greater Atlanta bubble.  I think airplanes are the most disgusting things on the planet, and are only equal in nasty dirty grossness to cabs, hotels, and public restrooms. And handrails on escalators.  And doorknobs.  And elevator buttons.  And . . . I should probably stop there.

The truth?  I love the idea of seeing the world.  I want to go to London and Paris and Australia and Northern Italy and Yellowstone National Park.  I’d just like to drive in my own car and stay in my own house when I get there.  My husband says there might be an RV in our future and I’ll admit . . . I kinda dig that idea.  London, Paris, Australia, and Northern Italy are out, but Yellowstone, here we come!

The thing about traveling is that it makes me hate myself.  I want so badly to enjoy it.  I want so desperately to overcome my OCD and rid myself of my irrational concerns and set foot on an airplane and in a taxi and in a hotel like a normal person, but I can’t . . . yet.

I am working on it.  I’ve gone back to my past to sort through what has caused my intense need to control every aspect of my surroundings, and it’s been a wildly intriguing process, as fascinating as it is disturbing.  But I have a long way to go, and so when my mother-in-law offered to take Libby and me to Chicago for a few days in honor of her upcoming eighth birthday, I took a deep breath, smiled, thanked her for such incredible generosity, and told her my daughter would be thrilled.  Then . . . I worried about the trip for weeks as we prepared to go.

I'm not completely distressed when I travel, but there is always an underlying current of anxiety limiting my ability to fully embrace the experience.  I find joy when I visit new places and discover all that makes them unique, but the joy comes with a hint of grief over what could be, if I was able to focus on the fun and not the foreign, if I could ignore my insatiable longing to be home. 

We stayed in my aunt-in-law’s beautiful new downtown condo in Chicago, so that helped.  Libby is older now, so that helped too.  She knows her mom is nuts and patiently uses the disinfectant wipes I doll out to her throughout the day without complaining.  She did, at what might go down as the lowest point in our relationship, ask when we could get in a cab again because, “Mama, they smell so good.” 

I was shocked, stunned, speechless . . . even slightly offended by such a preposterous declaration from a child who is supposed to have my blood running through her veins.

Our next cab ride cured my daughter's insanity within seconds.

We had a great trip.  Everything went smoothly and Libby relished in being on a girls’ excursion in which she was largely in charge of choosing the adventures.  We hit Lincoln Park Zoo, Navy Pier, Shedd Aquarium, and of course, our main event – we dined and shopped at the amazing American Girl Store on Michigan Avenue.  Libby had popsicles before lunch and ordered Sprite at dinner.  She had her doll’s ears pierced and went swimming in a rooftop pool overlooking the city.   It was a whirlwind forty-eight hours, and I believe we created some very special memories.  I’m sure Libby will remember dipping her toes into Lake Michigan, touching a stingray, riding the ferris wheel.  What I will remember most, however, took place after all the activities of day one had ended.

My daughter and I were lying in the bed we shared on the seventy-first floor, showered and clean and worn out, reading books before turning the lights out on our first day of travel.  My elbow ached from holding my book, so I stretched my arm over the expanse of bed between us.  Her little hand instantly covered mine, warm and soft and unexpected.  And in that moment, it didn’t matter that I hated myself.  It didn’t matter that while she was flitting about the city fulfilling her role as the center of attention, I was secretly counting down the hours until we returned home, to the one and only place I feel comfortable and safe and right.  It didn’t matter that I have OCD and I don’t travel well and I might never go to Paris and London and Italy.  In that moment . . . that precious, unforgettable moment . . . nothing else mattered.

She rubbed her fingers over mine, gently, reassuringly . . . as though she understood everything she never will about me . . . as if she realized how hard I worked to keep her unaware.  One day, she might look at me and past me and blame me and maybe even hate me because of the way my issues have caused her own.  One day, the space between us might be too wide to cross with the silence of an outstretched arm.  But on that day, in Chicago, my daughter reached for my hand across the bed, and covered it with grace.