I could hear him whispering the segmented sounds of each word to her in the kitchen, The Cowboy raising his daughter's confidence as she wrote out each letter.
I had made my way to my room, lying in chills under the mounds of covers.
Reesie was hugging the metal bowl that we use on days like this, the days when one by one we all just seem to go crashing down.
Me tucked back in the corner room of the farmhouse, the dancing girl came in, smiling and proud, with the card she had written all by herself in the kitchen with her Papa. I thought it such a sweet gesture and then she made me laugh when she told me that when I felt better, I would need to write a card thanking her for the card she had jut written me. :)
It's hard to be a mom and be tucked in a corner, knowing that your body won't let you fix what only you're ears can hear. The time passes slowly and the sounds of The Cowboy spraying an endless stream of Lysol make me chuckle under my covers. I could hear my Siah, his feet running frantic across the squeaky farmhouse floors. As I lie there shivering, I wonder if he's made it to the toilet. I can hear the Cowboy's tender words assuring his son that this to shall pass.
Selflessnes... A Cowboy who does not do throw up... doing throw up... because that's the thing that needs doing in the moment.
The oldest son can't seem to stop the madness and I rub his head and stroke his back and he whispers it so quiet that I almost miss it...
"Mama, I need you to pray for me."
I'm sick and I'm sensitive and I tear up at how the Lord makes even the throw-up moments, Holy moments.
I pray over my boy and sneak back into my own bed.
I'm lying in that corner room buried and I'm turning tomorrow's reality over and over again in my mind... The Cowboy will be slipping out in the early morning hours on his way to Texas and it'll just be me and the treasures and a silver, just-in-case, bowl, a butterfly box of tissues, and a bottle of Lysol, us all on the couch.
The temptation to pity myself comes, but then I remember why He allows me to read truth in just the right moments. A wise woman wrote a novel and all I took from it was a one-liner that is changing me... "God is our ONLY circumstance." Just when I'm tempted to think that I am unable in my circumstance, I remember that He Alone Is My ONLY Circumstance... and in Him, I am always able, because it is not me, but Him who lives in me that enables. Who am I to think that He will not give me more than I can handle? Of course He will give me more than I can handle... but only in order that I will be confident of my moment by moment need for Him.
The sick treasures have joined me in the giant bed, in the corner room. I'm grateful for the view out my pudgy-finger print covered window, a view of the rain dripping down, of our wedding photo in the sill. Grateful for the living life lying beside me. I'm thankful for dancing girls who write cards and for the thank you card that she's anticipating in return. :) I'm thankful for the view of the Cowboy who smiles at me each time he walks by the doorway with a another silver bowl full of throw up.
After all, what else is there to do but smile, knowing that in the chills, and the aches, and the mess, He enables. He alone is our ONLY circumstance.