When You're Thankful for Legs That Work and Soup to Make

This morning, strangely, I felt like I was supposed to stay home from church.  So.  I did.  Then, I felt like I was supposed to "make ready" for the day.  So.  I tamed my curly hair and bubbled in a bath and as I put down the bottle of my favorite lotion my phone rang.  And I spent the remainder of the day in the hospital with my ailing mother.  She could not make her legs work because she could not stop the pain.  I sat feeling mostly helpless at her reaction, first to the pain and then to the morphine to help the pain.  And, though the relationship between my mother and I has dramatically mended, there were some hard heart moments for me in which I had to walk down the hall and reclaim the truth and not wear someone else's lens up to my eye with which to view the world.

In the end, all was settled and I left her in good hands.  I walked out of the hospital and breathed in the lovely evening and laid down my anxiety and frustration and left it at my Creator's feet and thanked Him for my working legs and lungs that fill and eyes that saw the sunset.  It is not worth anything to miss those things.

I walked through my door and went straight to my kitchen; the haven of my heart, really.  I chop onions and saute sausage and hum to myself.  I'm making soup for people I love and it feels good and right to create and let the day's emotions evaporate into the steam rolling up from the pot.  I'm thankful tonight that I could be there for my mother, that my heart has healed enough for me to stand in that place.  I'm grateful that I have the Lover of my soul to take the prickly parts of getting involved and He can make them bloom into beautiful.  And I'm glad that I have legs that work and soup to make and people to love and care about and a kitchen to  create in.