Recovery

Well, the surgery went very well.  The patient is doing great, in spite of some pain and soreness.  I suppose that is to be expected.  It is never easy to watch someone you love go through surgery, but it is better than being sick and in pain.

I have been watching someone else go through pain lately.  Not physical pain, but pain none the less.  How do you resolve such a conflict?  I'm afraid I don't have the answer, but I know who does.   I have said all I know, and it has not been heard.  So, I have no choice but to back off and allow God to work and move in my loved one's life without my interference.  I will pray for my loved one, with praise and thanksgiving to God for all He is and will do in my loved one's life.  I don't know what that will mean for my loved one, I only pray that I can learn to lean wholy on Him and trust that He will do what is best for us both in this situation.

I have tried to figure out what changed, went wrong, or what I may have done or not done that missed the mark in my rearing of my children.  Every mother has regrets that plague her, things she wishes she could have done differently.  We, as mothers, can only do what we feel is right at the time we are faced with an issue.  It would be great if we could have the wisdom of hindsight to help make those decisions, but part of raising children is the trust that God will give us the wisdom to make good decisions.  I niavely wanted to do everything "right" so my children would have an easier life.  I realize, now that I am older, that we are not meant to have an easy life.  The Bible says that we will have troubles in life.  What matters is how we handle those troubles.  Do we stay the course with God, or do we cave in to the world's definition of "right"?   I thought I had given my children the resources they needed to "stay the course with God".  I am also realizing that it isn't my choice, it is my children's choice.  My only job is to teach the resources, and pray that they will always rely on God.  I thought they had all made the choice to follow God, and relaxed my covering of prayer for them, thinking they were safe.  How wrong I was!  My job now is to pray even harder for them as they manuver through the maize that is life to lean on God and not their own understanding.  I hope I am not too late in this revelation of my shortcomings.  With God all things are possible, so I will hold to that truth. 

I was reading this morning from a book by Janet Thompson about praying for your child.  This is an excerpt from that book:
         "The old saying, "Prayer changes things," is only half-true.  What it also changes is our attitudes as we relinquish our worries and anxieties to the Lord.  Often, then, when we leave the results to Him, He intervenes and does what we could not do.  Also, prayer changes our perception of what is possible and recruits us to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.  And its's during the step of praise in our paryers that we experience relinquishment.  You cannot really praise the Lord of All and keep contol of all at the same time."

So maybe this trial is also to teach me to learn to lean solely on God for all my understandings, too.  I have always asked God to make me a better mother everyday.  This is still my prayer, to make me a Godly mother each day even though I don't have small children in my home.  Our children deserve our unconditional love, and that includes our constant, persistent prayers for them all their lives.