Monday Blessings

Now is the time for blessings. Really, really, really time to count and give thanks for the beautiful, because there's plenty that's hard.

Last Sunday night Paul's asthma attack kept me up, and last night it was Beth and her coughing fits, twice making her vomit. Her methotrexate is an immuno-suppressant drug that makes it hard to get over illnesses, and she's also suffering from seasonal allergies.

Anyway, holding her at a sixty degree angle all night so the post-nasal drip would stop making her cough, while she thrashed about trying to lie flat, felt like a CIA torture chamber. Every time I would nod off she would have another coughing spasm. I decided against cough medicine because her cough was productive and I knew her body was trying to prevent pneumonia.

And of course you know it's always a cruel joke the way they perk up in the morning, after keeping you up all night with their cold symptoms. You think it will be a sick day and you'll read storybooks and watch thrift store movies under blankets with bowls of popcorn by your side.

But no, by day they're energizer bunnies, at least until 3 PM, at which time they fall apart emotionally, about the same time you're falling apart.

But God.

Always, there's beauty. Even in this portrait of maternal misery. Grace, that is. Children remind us that nothing's all that bad. That the sun comes out in the morning. That every day is new, fresh. That in all things, we can give thanks.

Thank you, Father, for these graces and blessings:

~ Paul went all day Sunday not needing his inhaler

~ The children presenting me with their exquisite handmade Mother's Day gifts, setting my heart all aflutter.

~ A chocolate pie for dessert

~ The little autistic boy I work with in the church nursery sitting in my lap, finally, and letting me look at books with him. I had to grab him, literally. The pressure of touch allows him to concentrate somehow, whereas otherwise he just wanders around the nursery aimlessly, ignoring everybody and touching the walls and the textures. He seems to need constant physical stimuli. He didn't want me to read the books, but he pointed to each letter of the alphabet and identified them! He doesn't speak otherwise, but he said each letter so that I could discern his speech. God spoke to me while little Rowan sat in my lap, his hair smelling so fresh and clean. If we take the time to really understand, there are no disabilities, just differences.

~ Peter reading book after book to little Ashton, the music pastor's daughter, in the nursery yesterday.

~ Beautiful children's fall and summer clothing finds at the thrift store

~ Husband showering Beth, again, while I took care of the vomit sheets.

~ None of the other children waking up, miraculously, when Momma shouted, "Help...she's throwing up! Please get me a throw-up bowl!"

~A jewel of a movie, very old, found at the thrift store and set in 1903, called So Dear to my Heart about a little boy in love with a pet lamb he takes to the county fair. So heartwarming.

~ A son excited about what the earth will yield from tiny seeds. And the miracle of the seed bringing us awe year after year.

~ Seeds representing the hope God asks from us as we wake each day. Dedicate the day to Me and watch me grow something beautiful out of it.