I have so many posts I want to write, have started writing…but my brain just can’t seem to write them. I thought I’d be further along in shoulder surgery recovery by now – further along in lessened pain. I’d be back to me, just in a sling. Back to writing.
But five weeks post-op, I still find myself either lowering the Tylenol when the vertigo it triggers gets too bad and wakes me up throughout the night…or in pain from less Tylenol which then gets too bad and THAT wakes me up.
Full disclosure: lots of tears and lots of swearing at stupid little stuff in the last week from lack of sleep.
Tag: peace
We had an amazing, restful vacation last week for the first time in four years. Four years where we’ve amassed two open-heart surgeries, a job loss, a stroke, shoulder surgery…oh yes, and a pandemic. We needed to rest.
Interestingly, I didn’t sleep well on vacation (shoulder pain post-op still and pain medication-induced vertigo waking me up).
But I actually felt rested.
That’s because sleep and rest are not the same thing. Sleep meets a physical need, a life or death requirement of the brain and body. You can’t live without sleep. I would have liked more sleep but I’ll live.
Rest, on the other hand, refreshes our souls, something deep inside yet not physically inside. You can be alive without rest but you’ll be dead to really living. To seeing and receiving soul-restoring peace.
Rest is being awake at 6 a.m. (not my normal), seeing a clear sky, and deciding to go take sunrise photos. In 23-degree F temperatures. (Really not my normal!)
I went on vacation this week. Well, a staycation. Ok, I spent a few hours relaxing on my deck. But I nursed three mugs of tea and just sat. It was amazing!
…
I have tried for ten minutes to figure out what to write. I type, then I delete. Because, I finally realized, that morning was so relaxing that I just really can’t write about it. Writing about it feels like it makes it work and that morning was not about work at all.
So, I’m going to share a few of the pictures that I took over the course of 2 1/2 hours of sitting on my deck – a very quiet, still time that calmed my body and started to restore my soul.
I enjoyed just being present to what came into my backyard. To the little gifts God sent my way that morning. I hope you find a few moments of peace as well. And maybe a chuckle about the squirrel that Cody thinks was smiling for the camera.
The secret of the healing power of beauty is learning to receive it as a gift.
John Eldredge, “Get Your Life Back“
Last week, I came across two social media posts in as many days that mentioned Wendell Berry. I didn’t know who he was so looked him up and learned he’s a writer, among other things. The search also showed one of his poems, “The Peace of Wild Things.” In reading it, I realized I had heard it recently in a podcast, the speaker reciting it to himself during his anxiety attacks.
Berry writes about waking in the night with fear (with nightmares lately, for me) and going out into nature:
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief.
“…forethought of grief…”
Wow, does that resonate.
All the “what-ifs” that give me a pit in my stomach.
I make certain you always have everything you need.
That is a paraphrase of Psalm 23:1 from a YouVersion Bible app devotional I recently read called “God’s Promises for the Hungry Heart.” The devotional paraphrases four verses each day to make them more personal and relatable. That sentence jumped out at me, but not because it resonated. It jumped out at me because I questioned it.
Everything I need?