The ambulance in the drive to pick up Dad Monday morning.
There's a nervous tightness in my stomach, and feeling of "what's next?" in our year of crazy medical problems and hospital stays. This was the first one I was home for, and I rather hope it's the last. I'm glad I was here to see it instead of in CT hearing about it after the fact, but that doesn't change the fact that it's scary to think that my Dad almost died Monday night, and that thought is not a happy one for Christmas morning. I could think about how blessed we are that he did make it, that today my whole family will be together for breakfast and presents, but for some reason my stomach can't think that way. All it can do is tighten up and make me nauseous with worry.
We are so fortunate to have a God like we do, one who cares, who's present in everything we do and in our lives and who listens to what we have to say and cries with us when we despair. So fortunate. And I wish there were more people who believed this as well. People who didn't take advantage of grace, who pretend to love God and really don't. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not perfect, and also that I have trouble trusting in God's grace. So many willing mistakes that I regret later and then repeat anyway. Falling into patterns. And yet there God is, waiting to catch me when I throw myself into His arms when I've fallen yet again. And yet there are idiots who think Christianity is a crutch. Psh. Obviously they've never been a Christian because being a Christian is SO much harder than living with the world. It's so easy to fall. I often wonder how the people of the world decide what is right and wrong. I asked a friend that yesterday. He said he always tries to do the right thing, and I asked the right thing in terms of what? On what are you basing "the right thing"? The Bible? Cause if he was he'd be failing, like the rest of us, but he's not the Bible reading type. He defined "the right thing" as putting others before himself. Which is a noble, and Biblical, deed, very chivalrous. But it's not enough. Life would be easier if it were, but if life were easy what fun would it be? How would we learn? How would we grow?
