Thankfulnesses

I am thankful to have all my children at home together. I have been very mindful of this, because of the missing girl, Jenni-Lyn. She lived on the very same street where my children had piano lessons for 14 years. She went to their school. She danced at the studio where Laura took ballet. She graduated between Shannon and DJ. She is gone, but I have my four children, safe and snug in our crazy, loud, messy house. My heart bleeds for her family. I pray they find her. I can't even imagine... she came home from college for Thanksgiving break, and the next morning her parents went to work, and when they got home that night, she was gone. I can't imagine the violent snuffing of the intense joy you feel when your child comes home from college. The newscasters call her a "woman." That offends me. She is a girl, her family's girl, her family's baby. And she is gone. I am so thankful for my four beautiful, safe children. I feel a little bit guilty, but I am thankful.

I am thankful for plentiful good food, and, today, I am especially thankful for leftovers! Food can make you feel guilty, too, when there is so much on one table on one day, and you eat until you can hardly move, and then you realize that there are people who are hungry and cold.

I am thankful for a warm house, my wool winter blanket, even my fake Ugg boots that I got for $7 at WalMart. I like these boots because even though they are cheap, synthetic, and a poor fashion knock-off, they are comfortable and they keep my toes downright toasty.

I am thankful for the internet and the way it enables us to keep in contact with people. I am thankful for phone plans and cell phone plans that include free long distance. I am thankful for old photographs and memories and stories and laughter.

I am thankful for my Bible and the passages I read this morning... a bruised reed He will not break and a smoldering wick He will not snuff out... He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in His arms and carries them close to his heart; He gently leads those that have young...Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and His understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

I am thankful that I have a Savior who shed His blood for me so that I can live with assurance that He has won the victory over sin and death, and although I may face many trials and hardships in this life, nothing can separate me from the love of Christ. Nothing can separate me from the love of Christ.

I am thankful.

Super-powers

Sometimes when you are online, one of those quiz things comes along. You know, the kind that asks you a whole long list of random questions about yourself.

Before you realize that nobody really cares about the answers except you, and that it is just a pitiful way to express your hope that someone out there in the electronic nexxus actually gives a hoot about your preferences, you might fill out the answers. Well, anyway, I did. I admit it.

One question came up now and then on the odd quiz, a question that used to stump me, and it was, "If you could have any super-power, what super-power would you want?"

I've never been much of a comic book reader, so I wasn't even much aware of what ideological super-powers were out there to be coveted. I did see The Incredibles, so that gave me a few ideas: Super strength? No. Elastic body motion? Ugh no. The ability to freeze things in an instant? Um, why??? Super-speed. No. The ability to create a safe force-field around yourself and to disappear? Maybe. That is the only one that holds any appeal for me at all.

Then of course there are things like being able to spew spiderweb from your hands and climb the sides of skyscrapers. Definite no there; I hate both stickiness and heights. And please, don't even mention x-ray vision. No Thank You.

This question always put me at sixes and nines, until a couple of days ago when I realized what super-power I do long for.

I wish I had the ability to heal.

It is a terrible feeling to be the mother and not to be able to make your baby better. This is true no matter how old your baby gets.

David has been sick for so long. My heart just aches. He puts forth such effort, studying, exercising, practicing, eating healthy food. And instead of getting well, he gets his iPod stolen. And then he gets sicker. And then he misses classes. And then school gets harder and harder to keep up with and the dream of becoming a doctor starts to feel as though it might be slipping away.

So as a mother, I pray. I pray and I cook. I boil chickens and I make tea. I make soup. I make doctor's appointments. I buy medicine and supplements. And I pray. I go to bed praying and I wake up praying, and I pray through the day. Sometimes I whimper while I am praying.

Sometimes I come up behind David while he is sitting and studying, and I rub his back and pray, but it usually makes me start to cry when I do that, so then I have to run off because it isn't a good thing when I cry.

I know that God has a plan, but what if His plan is not for David to be a strong, healthy doctor? I know we need to rest in that, accept that, trust that God's alternative is always, in the heavenly economy, a better alternative. It's just hard sometimes to focus on the heavenly economy when we live in the earthly one.

Jesus healed. I love to read in the gospels about how Jesus healed people. He healed a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years; she'd spent all her money on doctors (we can relate to that one), and, desperate, she reached out to touch the hem of Jesus' garment in the middle of a crowd, and when she did, His healing immediately spread throughout her body. Jesus healed people with leprosy, lame people, blind people and deaf people. He healed Peter's mother-in-law of a fever. He also brought people back from the dead, but I wouldn't want to do that.

Jesus' disciples healed a little bit while He was on earth, and more after He had gone up to heaven and sent them His Holy Spirit. The apostle Paul was so filled with the Spirit that Acts 19:11-12 says, "And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them."

If they could heal like that, I sure wish I could, too. Jesus was God incarnate, but Peter and John and Paul were just people, like us. Do I only need more faith?

Shawn says that if I had the gift of healing, I'd never get any sleep.

I would miss sleep. But just imagine the feeling of being a transmitter of God's power to the sick, to be able to touch the cancer patient and see her come back to health, see the pain and nausea and fear melt away. Imagine being able to soothe the stomach of the colicky baby in an instant, to be able to wipe the acne off a teenager's face with the brush of your fingertips, to be able to undo all the effects of fevers, lung disease, heart disease, diabetes, autism and alzheimers. Imagine being able to use your hands to apply the power of God to an accident victim who is bleeding out, to be able to stop the blood flow and knit the bones together and see all the tears around you turn to relief and joy. And because it would be by the power of God who made us and understands everything about us, the healing would be perfect, total, no side effects, no trade-offs.

If I had a super-power, I would want to be a Healer.