The last Thursday of March, I had a great day. Little did I know that would be my last normal day for a while.
The next week, I wound up in the hospital. A few days after that, I had surgery. I was in the hospital for a total of ten days. I am grateful to be recovering well.
Every morning, my care team would come into my room during rounds. Often, as they discussed next steps, they would orient themselves to the timeline: Well, today is hospital day 6, so we can probably…
It was strange hearing those numbers tick by. Day 6? Really? Was it really just a week ago I was out running errands and planning for the week ahead?
Rest and Reality
I am most of the way toward the full recovery that my doctor expects. And even though my month of downtime was unpleasant, I am blessed to have friends and family to care for me. Besides that, it’s easier for an empty nester with good health insurance to take the time to rest, since I didn’t have the added pressure of child care and huge financial burdens to further weigh me down.
I have given two talks in recent months. Both have been on the subject of rest. Rest is essential for the human body, no less so when the body is healing from illness or surgery.
When you are basically healthy and feeling well, it’s tempting to think that forced downtime would be a nice break from real life. Without the pressure of our jobs or housework or cooking, we think of all the productive things we could do. We could read books or knit or even watch all those movies in our queues. We would have something at the end of it to prove our time was well spent.
I learned after a similar surgery two years ago that “redeeming the time” is largely out of the question. Following the plot of a sitcom was too taxing during most of my hospital stay, and the initial weeks at home were not much better. I simply have four weeks of my life with little to show for it but surgical scars. Nothing was written and no research was done.
Worth and Redemption
I know, of course, that my worth is not found in my productivity. My worth comes from being created in God’s image. And though my physical body is an integral part of my existence, I am reminded on the daily that it is also wasting away (2 Corinthians 4:16).
I have always loved the quote by John Piper: “Every day, in every circumstance, God is always doing 10,000 things in your life, but you might be aware of only three of them.”
This quote brought me great comfort when I first heard it years ago. It continues to comfort me today. It’s a relief to know that my days are in the hands of a good and loving God. And like a detective with a magnifying glass, I used to look hard to see what I thought God might be up to.
I’m finding, though, that the older I get, I am less inclined to figure out what the three (or two or six) things might be. Maybe it’s because living through the trials takes all that I have. Maybe I’ve learned that reasons I bother to assign may turn out to be wrong.
In other words, I don’t know if it’s a sign of maturity or exhaustion. I do know that God is faithful, in all the surprises of life.
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