Ramblings from a sick-bed
Well it finally hit at our house. The miserable stomach virus that is sweeping the country landed here last Thursday. Fortunately for me, I had a very mild version and spent the last four days feeling nauseous and not wanting to eat anything. Unfortunately for my poor husband, he got hit with it hard on Sunday and spent the last three days in bed or on the floor or couch or lounger--wherever his aching bones and joints would allow him to rest. He is just today beginning to think I'm trying to starve him to death with clear liquids and very thin chicken noodle soup.I realized yesterday as we both sat in our robes watching TV that we have never in our married lives been ill at the same time. That actually isn't so bad since we are neither one whiny or overly dependent on each other at those times. Yesterday was just very quiet and as peaceful as possible when you feel crummy. Today I am thinking that it's okay on occasion to have days like that together. Then again, what would it be like if that was our future? Ooh.
Today I am feeling much more like myself and very hungry. This is a good thing. I am also a bit introspective. I haven't had much of a chance to look back at the last year and forward to this one. It is a ritual I have established over the last few years and this year I haven't done it yet. I have long since stopped making New Years resolutions because those last about a month and then I feel like a failure for the rest of the year. I just look back now to where I was last year and how I've grown as a person as well as in Jesus. It's so much more rewarding than looking back at all the ways I've failed myself, other people and God. I can't do anything about those failings now anyway. So I have learned to give myself a break and look at how I've grown, how I may be drifting in one area or another and what I would like to see when I look back next year. These things are things I have some control over but a lot of how I grow is done by God. These goals are goals I have made with Him knowing I can't do it without him. It makes it so much more pleasant to look at last year with Him and to talk about it with Him and discover how I can move forward and out of bad habits or poor ways of thinking and be more like him.
This year I would like to see a passion for the downtrodden grow in me. I would like to see me become more forgiving of those who I feel have failed me because they haven't lived up to the lofty post I may have assigned to them or they aren't meeting my idealogical view of how they should be or how they should do something. I would like to see my church family become the loving gentle group of people I know they can be and be able to see what my role might be in that transition. I would like to see more surprises in my life which means I will need to be watching expectantly over the next months.
I suppose some of my goals are a little overblown but it gives me something to reach for and something for God to surprise me with as he reaches down to meet me. It also takes away all my reasons for being depressed about life and gives me many more reasons for hope and for peace.
What are your rituals at the beginning of the new year?
Labels: illness, resolutions
posted by Dana @ 3:45 PM
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