27 hours. That’s how long my daughter had been whining and moaning about the incessant tube that was taped around her face and neck and channeled through her nose down into her stomach. Still groggy and cranky from the anesthesia, as it always makes her someone she is not. I don’t like what the drug does to her. She is foul and angry and combative and sad. Until it slowly releases her sweet soul and she comes back the next day. I was sympathetic and attempted to comfort her any way I could, while monitoring her ph level and recording the time, and her food intake and activity level every 30 minutes. It was a long two days. I was tired and so was she.
In the big picture, this was really nothing. We have dealt with much more sickness and procedures and surgeries and longer bouts of misery than this. It was a short moment of time to assess healing ulcers and severe reflux. It would be over soon and we would be at the pool the following day. I kept telling her and reminding myself as well.
But by the last few hours of this struggle, my daughter’s moaning and crying got the best of me and I lost it.
“Don’t you know how blessed you are? Look at all you have in your life!! THIS will be over soon and we get to go about our active and joyful fun-filled lives! You know how many kids DON’T get to go on in a normal life? ENOUGH self-pity! You are FINE! Stop swimming in your pool of self-consumed agony and look beyond your world!”
Yes, I know she’s only nine… and maybe I went too far. But I often expect my children to act like grown-ups in my weak moments. I just do.
We get to the hospital to finally take the catheter out and set her free; she is quiet but still moaning. It’s a long walk through the hospital to get to the GI surgery center. The walk is always convicting and very sad. We pass the ER, the radiology labs, several clinics and all the countless sick and debilitated children going to and fro, throughout the long corridors. This path always pushes me in a new realm of sympathetic reality.
“Look around you my dear. JUST look at every child you see and take it in. (Nodding over to a girl in wheelchair with a breathing apparatus and tubes coming from every side of her body. Raising eyebrows to a small child screaming in a woman’s arms. Nudging my daughter to look at the deformed and very ill child in the stroller.)”
Her eyes grew big and sad and scared.
“Yes my dear, you are very fortunate.”
She nods conceding to the suffering she sees.
I put my arm around her and began my pastoral lecture:
“It is okay to feel badly about our circumstances. I get that you are miserable. I want to comfort you and make everything better. But I also want you to look beyond you, even in your despair. I want you to learn how to deal with your struggles and one way to do this is to realize your blessings. I know how hard it is to pull yourself out of the struggle to see what is good. But I always tell you this every time you are sick, because I believe it has helped me so many times. In our suffering, we must find gratitude. And we always, always can do that.”
She got it. My little nine year old understood this concept, swallowed it down yet again, as I force it on her regularly. It may be harsh. It may be way out of her developmental league- but it is a truth and tough reality. There is always something to be grateful for in any situation.
And yet, it’s so much easier to coil up in our wounded world isn’t it?
A day later, I am convicted in my own lecture. How dare I pressure her to look beyond her pain and find gratitude when there are so many times I cannot? Yes, us mothers, we know how to function through sleeplessness and sickness and work schedules and headaches and stress. We always rise to the call because that is what we do. But here is the challenge:
Can we rise up out of our struggles and suffering and search for gratitude?
Or do we just push through and grimace, moan and cry through those difficult days…weeks…months.
There are times I want to do what my precious daughter did. I want to groan and sigh and swim in my own pool of self-pity. Suffering can consume you and often blind you to seeing all that is good.
Then I think of my favorite verse. And I breathe in reflections of all that is beautiful in my life, and slowly exhale gratitude…finding what is worthy of praise.
“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” (Phil 4:8)
Even though sometimes, I need a bit of time to get there… much like my daughter did.
This totally made me tear up. For you, for your sweet daughter, for all the people you saw that day whose lives are so much of everything that makes life hard. I am by nature a complainer. I wish I wasn’t, I wish I was go with flow, whatever, Zen like about everything, but I am not. It bothers me about myself…not so much that I change it, mind you, but enough that I am aware of it. I do, though, try to step back, sometimes well past the time I should have, and take it all in. Savor the moments, you know.
Beautiful post.
Oh yes… I. Get. You. 🙂 And man, I am the first to acknowledge anything going wrong in my world!!! How’s that for a lovely creative way of saying… COMPLAINING!!! Thank you so much for your (as always) honest sharing and kind encouragement!! LOVE your support!!!!!!
So true! What a great perspective. It’s a daily struggle but one very worthy to work on! Love ya
Yes! Always difficult but so critical to changing our perspective when we are struggling. Thanks soooo much for reading! LOVE you!
You have a great way of putting it all in perspective, sis. You have been through a great deal, but you always come out of it with strength and wisdom. Certainly your kids benefit from your perspective… Beautifully expressed!!
Thanks so much sister!!! Love the encouragement from you… 🙂
What a beautiful post! Gratitude…it’s so hard to find when all we want to do is complain and whine…and we have so much to be grateful for!
“Grateful”, my new mantra I repeat to myself when the whining sets in.
Visiting for SITS Saturday sharefest.
sewcarolinaknits
Thanks so much for visiting and your kind praise!! Yes- the Grrr… comes easy. The gratitude is a bit harder to come by!!! I love the mantra 🙂
Love how “real” you express the hardship but also forcing yourself and your sweet daughter to look past the hardship to the blessings that you have. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks dear friend! We all have our hardships. I know your strength. And I can only imagine all you endure. You are amazing. I love you. 🙂
This is one of my most treasured go-to verses! I love God’s sense of humor and incredible grace that only minutes or hours after we’ve been challenged to guide our children through their struggle, he throws us a similar situation of our own to deal with. And how wonderful – if we’re listening – that our own self-knowledge & compassion for a child’s struggles can grow with this experience. Great post, Chris!
yes! So true how God works that way…into our lives! He has used my daughter’s struggles to grow me so much through the last nine years… As you have been witness to so many many times!!!
My favorite thing about this scenario for you and Cass is that via her struggles she has been teaching you through the past 9 years the wisdom and understanding that you need to know in order for you to teach her what wisdom and understanding she needs to know! Isn’t God amazing how he uses our children to teach us how to be better people to glorify Him and in turn we use that enlightenment to teach our children? He literally and I believe with full intention uses our failings, flaws, shortcomings, ignorance, doubts and inadequacies and turns them into potential positive influences and learning experiences for ourselves and our children as we grow. Grateful indeed. He not only is gracious, He still brings blessings despite our muddled perspectives when the storms come in….He must think we are pretty special indeed.
So BEAUTIFULLY said dear sis. SO beautifully said. You are so so right.
Oh Chris! This made me cry!! What a beautiful mother you are!! You have great wisdom for such a young mother, and your children will be much wiser, compassionate adults because of you! I pray you get all the answers about your daughter’s medical condition soon. God bless your precious family!(I will be sharing this beautiful post.)
Oh Patty! I am so grateful for your encouragement!! You ALWAYS inspire and motivate me to be a better person, through your loving, bright and always comforting and praising eyes! Thank you thank you thank you!!!! I am so blessed by you…
Wow, what a lesson for all of us! What a lesson you’re teaching her at a young age (not too young in my opinion) for her to start learning to be full of graditude now. She will have mastered this very hard lesson by the time she’s a mommy. Great job teaching – not just her – but us too.
Thanks so much. It’s such a hard lesson for us all!!!! Thanks for your support at doing this with her at her age…means so much to me!!! LOVE that you are reading AND commenting!!!! YAY!!! 🙂
Great post. 🙂
Appreciate your reading and commenting!!!
I love this post.
It is open and honest and I’m sure not easy to write in parts.
You have a brave and wise beyond her years little girl. I tend to want mine to act more like an adult sometimes, too — and always feel guilty afterwards. I catch myself doing some of the things I’ve griped about her doing…
But I’m off point. I am thankful you shared this in my link up this week.
My girl has had some difficult seasons in her life, but I truly see the strength that has grown in her through it all. Thanks for allowing me to do my first “link up” with you! Woohoo! 😉