How beautiful...

She's little and her problems seem so large. Whole days swallowed up for therapy, praying constantly for her complete healing, monitoring her for seizures. Miss one dose of her medication, and it's days before the seizures are back under control. She snuggles in my chair on a bad day for seizures, her eyes roll back, lids heavy, and she relaxes, this tense bundle of nerves. She fights the seizures, then fights the deep sleep that comes after them. She is the soldier falling asleep standing up, sword in hand. Afraid if she falls asleep on sentry duty, another seizure will sneak through.

We all count days that I haven't given in to temptation. I pray, over and over, aloud in my home, the Lord's Prayer. I like the way Jon Foreman tweaked the words at the end: Keep me far from my vices and deliver me from these prisons. (from his solo album Spring) My aunts come for the weekend and pretend to be Grandmas. They feed, diaper, do laundry, clean my kitchen, do my dishes. A verse keeps sneaking underneath the curtain of consciousness as I watch them work, I the fixture on the couch, trying to heal what I cannot test or even see: How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, "Your God reigns!" (Isaiah 52:7)

Before I know it, another day has come and gone. My sister spends the morning with me, over-caffeinated and not in favor of just sitting to visit. Instead she cleans my 8' island and works on some clothes left over from the season change while I sit there at the island and talk. She flits about while I get my devotions read. My nephew Robbie fell in love the swing just like the rest of us.

I ponder my depression, my anxiety - like the breakers, those big thunderous waves crashing down on the beach. I am the sand, and each breaker washes some of me away and lays me bare. Psychological testing  laid me bare, even though it found only PTSD, which I knew already. The verses read on Sunday catch...

Let all that I am wait quietly before God, for my hope is in him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will not be shaken. My victory and honor come from God alone. He is my refuge, a rock where no enemy can reach me. O my people, trust in him at all times. Pour out your heart to him, for God is our refuge. (Psalm 62:5-8)

This is a post of thanks. Thanks first to God, then my family and friends who are carrying me along by the strength of their linked arms. I am on the receiving side of God's love, through people, and it is rich, beautiful, overwhelming, mind-consuming, and finds the gem in the bottom of the pot of ashes. As for me, I am untangling some more of my messy self today, and praying that soon I can see the lace that has been crocheted from this trial.