Best Books of 2024

 Yesterday, I sat down at a wide, empty table and journaled about 31 gifts from this past year of life. "My life is so good...so perfect. Such joy," I think as I close my journal. I leave with a belly warm and full of chai tea and a heart buoyed with gratitude and joy, ready to wrap my arms again around my greatest gifts.

But this morning, I'm hurting, hurting alot. My spine hurts, my fingers hurt, my neck hurts, my shoulders hurt. Walking hurts. My shingles hurt. Lifting Ruth hurts. Unbuckling car seats hurts. I move like molasses. It weighs my down and discourages me. As I fed Ruth this morning the thought came quietly, "I can't keep doing this." We've made it 6.5 months with breastfeeding - amazing! - but maybe it's time to reconsider. But what are my options? Methotrexate, no... Meloxicam, maybe? I zip off some messages to my high-risk OB and midwives. Would Meloxicam really help that much? I see an email from Dr. Laukaitis saying my kidney function is actually fine - which means I can feel fine about taking more ibuprofen. Let me go do that now, I really should. Ok, that's done. I'll start to feel better in a few hours. 

I find it hard to sit with both. The night and the day. The nights are so hard. I ache and ache. A good night is any one I don't wake up in throbbing pain. But then the daylight comes and I'm hopeful and happy again. In the midst of my vast gratitude for the life I have in which every one of my desires has been granted in accordance with his good and sovereign will, I am hurting, dragging, discouraged, exhausted, weary, worn down. But I also know it's important to sit with both and not rush to be okay, or turn my head away from Reality. I know from experience God meets me in powerful ways when I face Reality and allow him into the darkest, saddest, emptiest places of my broken body and grieving heart.

So that brings me to you, Father of every good and perfect gift. I am admitting I'm not okay right now. I'm pressed down, I'm sad and sorrowing. I miss all the things I can't do when I'm hurting. I miss the parts of me that are dormant in pain. They hide in the wings, sometimes taunting me for the person I ought to be - but can't - when my body is aflame with pain. I ask for healing. For wisdom about medicines. For grace to press on and do what is faithful, day after day. Help me ask for help when I need it. Help me breathe my sorrows to you rather than pretend they don't exist.