I wrote this post last week, while waiting and thinking…
I thought I could sit and write today. The room is quiet around me and I have a bottle of good green tea. My chair is soft, my laptop on my lap.
But my son is in surgery, for a minor procedure we couldn’t get done this summer, and I find I am unable to write while I am thinking about my child on an operating room table. I sat with him while he went to sleep, his eyes freezing into place and then drooping shut. I do not like to think of my child under the knife, that deathlike sleep where one does not feel, does not think, does not move.
But I am grateful.
I’m grateful for the miracles of science. Two of his nurses had a playful argument while his anesthesia took hold.
It’s “magic air” that we’re giving you, honey, scented like Skittles.
Do you think it’s really magic? I asked him.
It’s more like science, said the other gal. Enough said. We don’t understand it.
Well then, it’s kinda magic.
I wonder if he will remember this conversation when he awakes.
One of the things I love about Regan is how confident he is, charismatic, energetic. He walked ahead of me into the operating room and put himself on the table and grinned. I followed him in my germ-proof bunny suit. What a kid.
And now it is over, and we don’t have to worry anymore.
People say you don’t have to worry at all, just trust, but I have never found that secret. Worry is my love language. That is why, despite the soft chair and the good tea and the ready laptop, the words won’t come. But there is always tomorrow.
How much do you worry about the people you love? Does it help? I would like to talk more about this next time.
Worry is my love language too. Many times a day I have to stop and put my loved ones in God’s hands because the task of keeping them safe is far too big for me. (Of course it’s not my task to start with, but worry makes it feel like mine.) I’m interested to hear more of your thoughts about this.
I think worry is my love language too. I really try not to worry. Really I do but I just don’t know how not to worry. I’m worried now about my husband’s heart. His physical heart that is that is not in the right rhythm. I’m glad your son got through his surgery. He’s a cutie!
I guess worry is my love language too. I’ve seen my son through 7 surgeries. And even tho 7 is the perfect number I worry it won’t be the last one. It’s always harder then before. They turn their name into a number on a screen. And you’re left in a soft chair to worry. But thru it all when you reach for God you look up and realize He’s already carrying you. ‘I will never leave thee nor forsake thee… ‘
I trust all is well with your son and the worry is over for now…. hang in there!!!
Never thought about worry being a love language before, but I surely am fluent in it! I found out last Saturday that I still speak the language for my married sons…they ran in a half marathon on a very warm day and they both ran across the finish line together but the one doesn’t remember it because he was overcome with heat exhaustion. (he tells the story in a vid: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eKEJ2Ehgo-I&feature=youtu.be) And this mom worried. Did it help? No. And yes. I like to think that in the end, the worry struggle is beneficial – even necessary – in the learning trust journey. Anyway, here’s a hug from this mom-heart.
There is a very fine line between our motherly love and worry. Sitting by a dear loved one who is ravaged with intense pain and there is nothing a mother can do, but support, love and pray……. I may have crossed that line sometimes and had to come back to trust God for the next moment, but over and over I was so thankful that God knows me better than I know myself. He understands our hearts, He made us and He heard each cry of my mother heart. We trust/ed when the hardest thing to do is/was trust. We rest in His arms when we don’t understand. He continues to give grace.
I hope you don’t have to worry anymore about your son. 🙂 It is concerning to have surgery done, I agree.
I didn’t research this idea but where does concern stop and worry begin? 🙂
Since this is a bunny trail I’ll come down here.:) Actually one of your more recent posts had a comment pertaining to this issue and what I’m wondering is this: when we who have children get together with other families how much looking after our children should we do? Where is the dividing line between taking our responsibility and when it’s overdone? ( As in hovering over mentality.) That’s not what I want to do but….
I kinda know but I think just plain looking after our children (esp if there may be a behavior problem going on) is something that should be talked about more. 🙂 No condemning needs to happen, just careful thinking and acting.:)
I read this while sitting in the building where my husband went under the knife twice in the past few months. I’ve spent hours here in waiting rooms with my laptop on my lap – trying not to worry. I too rarely have words. I found that I can answer emails and do some editing – but produce words? No, that creative part of my brain is locked away in this place where science and magic mix.
Hope you son is mending quickly.
Gina
Worry tends to get put in a sin bin, but maybe there is worry AND worry. I might have a worry that grips me 20 times a day but if every time it drives me to prayer, well, then, at least I have PRAYED! But if my worries drive me to manipulation and anxiety, then it has entered another category. Maybe I use the word worry too loosely. Because trusting doesn’t mean we don’t see the dangers. It just means we know Who is bigger than the danger.
If worry is the feeling that drives me to distraction when I don’t know where my husband or children are or how they’re doing, yes, I worry. Does it help? In keeping them out of harm’s way when they’re not in my presence, no. In reinforcing to my heart that they are its dearest treasures, yes!
But if worry is the anxious fretfulness about things out of my control, no- or rather, I try to do that as little as possible; it is forbidden by my husband 😉