Healing

Thin winter sunshine. Dry-as-dust snow snaking over the road in the 14-degree wind.  Driving to pick up the kids from school, I am grateful. I feel strong, no longer overwhelmed physically and emotionally by the simplest tasks, let alone the volume of responsibility that is running a household of 3 young children and a husband with a demanding job. It's still daunting, but gone is the hopelessness born of the feeling that I just. can't. do. it.

Better yet, the invisible and inexplicable wall around my heart seems to be crumbling. For so much of last year, I hunkered down inside a fortress I couldn't understand. Didn't want to be friends with anyone outside my closest (tiny) circle.  Didn't care. I was totally satisfied with the presence of my kids and husband, though I felt perplexed as to why this was so.  Was this the new me, so unlike the old? I sort of hoped not, but oh well. Nothing I could do to change it. Besides, no new acquaintance could understand what I'd been through and I didn't have the energy to explain.

But today, returning to our church's women's Bible study after a long holiday hiatus, I was joyfully surprised. Every face seemed like that of an established or potential friend. Instead of a guarded heart, I found that I had an open one--open to the possibility of new relationship. The wall had been reduced to piles of rubble which I could peer past. I even began to clamber over: I told the whole circle of women about my upcoming PET scan and my desire to trust the Lord for its outcome.

I can only attribute this to the slow process of God's healing my body and heart (more about that tomorrow.)  And I'm grateful.