I’m home! God was MERCIFUL in allowing me to fly home with three of my children on Monday afternoon. On top of all the other camping issues, morning sickness hit me last Friday afternoon. (Wasn’t expecting that until this week…) It proved to be too much. I can handle a lot when I’m healthy and rested. I’m just mush on the plate when I’m sick and exhausted.
The first thing that struck me when I walked into the door of my home was…how much wide open space there was to move around in! I reveled in it! Then I bawled…I was so happy. (A touch of insanity here…but I recovered.)
On Tuesday I had a low grade fever, chills and body aches. I felt like a truck hit me. No amount of sleep seemed to help. Ever seen those old fashioned movies or read those old books from the 1800s…when the “stress” makes a woman “ill”? I always thought that was a bunch of bunk. Until Tuesday. I was literally sick from the lack of sleep and stress of that trip.
I deserve it. God didn’t give me the gift of mercy. It’s kind of pathetic…I’m always telling family and friends…and myself, incidentally, to “buck up” and “get some grit”. I rarely feel a twinge of empathy. (Some of you have been the recipients of my heartlessness…forgive me!!) So God has this way of putting me through various troubles so that I can experience a little pain now and again…and then my compassion grows accordingly.
18 years ago I was pregnant with our first child. When the morning sickness settled in, I was in shock. I always feel compassion for a first time, pregnant mom who is sick. She doesn’t know what hit her. She thinks she’ll be sick for the rest of her life. It’s not like anything she’d ever experienced before…and her new husband doesn’t seem to “get it”…(poor guy…how can he?)
I was a pouty, complaining, whining little nitwit for two months. I had never been so miserable in all my born days…and I hated life.
Until I lost that little girl at 21 weeks.
I found out too late that my cervix was weak…and gave birth too soon to a living, healthy, but premature baby. And I made the sad discovery that morning sickness was NOTHING compared to burying a baby and walking away from the grave with an empty belly.
I don’t complain about morning sickness anymore. It still doesn’t feel good…but I’ve felt worse…and this sickness means there is a baby growing and thriving…and, Lord willing, it will all be worth it in the end. (Well, of course it will be…regardless of the earthly outcome…)
And I know there are women out there who would give the world to be sicker than a dog every day. I’m privileged to call some of them my friends. This is one area in which my compassion is wide and deep…and God uses their presence in my life to enable me not to take life for granted and to avoid complaining in my spirit about the troubles that come with pregnancy. Without having had that experience (and four other losses along the way), I would be another whining woman…far worse than the rest, believe me.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer.Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.
II Corinthians 1:3-7
