just reflecting....

A year ago my back blew up. No, not the whole thing-just one tiny piece. But that was enough for me. If my life has a check list of things for me to go through before I'm called home, "horrible" has now been checked off... I hope.

While the pain I felt was the scariest, worst experience I could ever imagine happening to me, things that have happened since then have made that time almost worth it.

In the first place, I saw just how deeply and truly my husband and sons love me. They went above and beyond the call of duty to take care of me and let me know they'd actually lay down their lives for me. It's been a humbling year in that regard and I feel as if I don't deserve them.

Because I was pretty much an invalid for 10 months the computer has become a blessing and a curse. I'm now addicted to it, but also incredibly thankful for it. The best part has been finding old friends on facebook and getting reacquainted with them and making new friends there as well.

I've done a lot of whining and fretting in the last year...wondering if I'll ever be as normal as I ever was before. (whatever that means) I was literally forced to S.T.O.P. for 10 months and that's not something I do easily. I like to function and when I couldn't I felt like, " Just dump me overboard. I'm no longer a productive member of society." On the other hand, I've been strangely thankful for this time. How many people are given the gift of being able to step out of the picture and just laze around for almost a year? The stresses that normally invade my head were invisible because I was so focused on pain and healing-nothing else mattered. So, depending on how you look at it, this was a deeply refreshing year.

I learned that I'm not as important as I thought I was. The earth went on spinning and the seasons came and went, people went about their business and life went on as usual-all without my help. This is a good thing to discover. Really, it is. God is God and He can manage things perfectly whether I'm up and running or not. My faith has deepened because of this experience. That alone does make it worth it.

I'm sure there are other things I've learned and more blessings I'll discover as I slowly creep away from this year. Sometimes we need a bird's eye view of an experience to see what God was up to. Sometimes, unfortunately, He never tells us. Even if this is all I ever see, it's enough.

I do have one more thing to add, just to keep it real. Over the last year I've often felt like I had a big target on my head. I wanted to borrow Frodo's elven cloak and hide under it until God "forgot" all about me. The only thing is, God didn't forget about me. He crawled right in there under the cloak with me, put His arms around me and held me through it. Sometimes it didn't feel that way but it's true. I can see it now.