Recovering from Recovery

We have come through to the other side of Kheler's post surgical recovery! 

We made it! 

It wasn't like we expected, yet we didn't actually know what to expect.

It was hard. 

You know how doctors give you those "there's a 10% chance x, y, & z could happen" statistics and you think, "Well, THOSE are great odds!"? 

Well, they ARE good odds, but we weren't the 90%, we were the 10%. 

I circled my emotional drain multiple times a day. 

Each morning I started my day on my 1/8' of the bed with the verbal proclamation, "I can't do this!" and I meant it. It wasn't a hypothetical statement, it was one I believed in my core. 

It turns out, we have a VERY strong willed, determined, and stubborn son. All three years of him convinced us that he will become a doesn't-take-dookie Navy Seal Commander. That kid had my husband and I, two people on the same team, convinced the other was an under cover spy working for the enemy. 

We had a son who had become a popsciletarian, anti-beverage, and could be a poster child for DARE...he WOULD NOT take the drugs! I mean, bravo to him, I hope it stays that way, but in this particular season, we were practically {no, we actually were} pinning him down, blowing air up his nostrils to get him to open his mouth long enough to super-soak his throat with hydrocodone only to watch him volcanically erupt it back in our direction. Did you get winded by the ridiculous length of that sentence? It was worse in real life.

In all of it's empty, ugly, exhausting, heart breaking misery though, there was life being planted for us. 

The only comparison I have now for what we went through and now being on the other side is that it was like depression. When you are depressed, truly, dark hole, desolate depressed, you can't even fathom what a smile feels like or remember what happiness FEELS like. People TELL you you will feel it again, but the numbness has spread too deep. 

This was like that. I KNEW it was temporary, but I COULD NOT see the light. I could NOT get on my knees and pray...I could only beg. My prayers became like tick marks on a prison wall, "Just make it stop. Make.It.Stop!" I KNEW there was an ending, but I didn't see how we were going to feel normal again. And in ALL of that, I felt greedy for taking up air space with God. 

Who was I to be praying for a fever, a bleeding throat, a child who was fighting me to get better when there are others with so much more persistent pain? 

I found myself void of the reality that this inconsequential moment in my life MATTERED to Him.

But that's where He worked. 

He climbed in the holes others were keeping Him FOR me. 

He lived in my neighbor who lovingly shared her empathy and was my guide through this. He used her as the echo reminding me, "You're not alone!"

He breathed through my best friend who sat on the other end of the phone letting me be angry and telling me, "I'm sorry," which was exactly what I needed...just to vent.

He lifted me up through my girl friends as we tri-talked via group chat in facebook. When I went silent, they said, "Get real with us!"

He hugged me & spread His covering over me through the servants heart of a friend who put together a meal train, made treat and present deliveries and showed up at the ER the second time Kheler had to go in.

He stared me in the face each time I opened my door and found a balloon, stuffed animal, gift, flowers or a note from a complete stranger wishing us well.

My friend Carin wrote the most beautiful blog & included a bit about our walk through this recovery. She wrote, "I felt like walking behind her that week with a sign pointing at her that read 'BE NICE! She hasn't slept in a week and her baby boy is really really sick. Buy her a coffee.'" And it made me CLING to the reality that we are LOVED, we are PROVIDED for, we MATTER. It makes me want to LOVE out harder, more compassionately, more sacrificially, more intentionally than ever.

It was dark. It is light again. We each have our seasons where we need someone behind us with a sign. Who are you holding the sign for right now? Who do you need to hold a sign for? Are you the one who needs the sign? 

Know this, the sun always shines again.