I am distracted and focused. I am scattered and gathered. I am prayerful and skeptical. I am angry and comforted. Last night my sister received confirmation from her doctor that the tumor she had removed last week is the same kind of lymphoma she had three years ago in an entirely different location in her body. Last night I felt only sadness - baffled, helpless sadness - over this news. Listlessness slipped me into sleep. This morning I awoke angry. On her behalf, on her husband's behalf, on her children's behalf, on our parents' behalf, on our family's behalf, I'm angry. Aware that it is far from hopeless, that it could all be okay, I can only consider how it shouldn't be at all.
You know those times when you are aware of exactly what you ought to do, what is in your best interest to do, but you cannot do it? All logic, all experience directs you but you willfully veer left instead of right. In the back of your mind you retain awareness that eventually you will listen to that guiding voice... eventually you'll reenter the road that leads to hopeful trust and peace of mind... but not yet. No, not yet. For now, you choose weakness, aggravation and distraction.
I should pray. I should visit my sister. Instead I am itching to go for a jog, to start those revisions I've been procrastinating on for weeks, to shop, to bake, to finish the book I'm reading. I am a woman of faith and hope and love, but I am also a woman of selfishness and fear. I am all these things. If not for the grace-granting knowledge of God's love for me, I would only be the lesser of these things.
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