Why are gifts so hard to accept?


Being in the hospital left me incredibly blessed as I was held in love by my friends and family.  I laughed and tried to be as witty as possible.  Mostly because I like to be witty, but also because then you wouldn't say that haunting sentence that I was already dodging.

I am lucky to be alive. 

Right?  That's what you wanted to tell me, isn't it?  That's the whisper I heard at night when tears slipped onto my pillow.  That's the shadow that I am boxing today.

Yes, the doctors confirmed that those blood clots could have done much worse, if I had been older, if my heart wasn't as healthy.  And now I get to take shots in my bruised and tender belly until the pills make my blood "thin" enough.  I still get short of breath walking up steps, challenging myself.  I have to be more careful of what I do to and put in my body.  Every time a pup jumps on me or I hit my arm, I startle about bruising.  I think hard before I eat, how each bite may slow my progress with blood work. 

And in addition to those things, I feel guilty that I am struggling today. 

I hate that I am whiny and tearful.  I hate that fear, mostly the fear of what could have happened and the fear of what will inevitably happen one day, have crept into my today.  I should be grateful, and I am.  I should be faithful, and I think that I am.  But I am overwhelmed.  Like in the "what the heck happened to my other life" and "I want that other girl's reality back" sort of way.

It isn't that I am afraid to die.  I feel confident that it will be just fine.  Somehow it is the new knowledge of how fragile and finite this life of mine is that troubles me.  I wonder if I have contributed anything useful or if I have just been sucking air.  I wonder what matters.  Tears fall more easily.  I just don't know. And I don't know how to resolve it. 

I can't make the numbers of my blood work move the right way.  I can't make the clots dissolve faster.  I can't go back to who I was.  And I can't figure out how to be okay with where I am now.

Never has God asked me to lie to him.  Never.  In fact there have been moments that I have tried to be pious and ended up fake and he was far from me.  But I can yell and scream at him and he holds me as I flail.

So, I won't pull punches with him, or you.  That's one of the reasons that I started this blog.  Grace, this crazy gift, was difficult for me to accept.  And now I have more challenges, new graces, that are no easier it seems despite how long I hang with the Big Guy. 

No matter what changes, this is what I know for now...I am still living in my grace-period, by grace, period.  Amen.

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