Stuck in bed.
I have gotten pneumonia I don’t remember how many times in the past year, three? Four? And each time it’s been the same – come down with a cold, wake up shivering in the middle of the night, debate whether to go to the hospital or not. It’s ALWAYS 2:00 in the morning, and always the weekend!
Emergencies always happen on the weekend.
And then I spend 3 to 5 days in the hospital on IV antibiotics. Which is mostly like a very expensive vacation since by the second day I feel mostly fine. Well, a vacation where you have to walk around attached to an IV pole and pee in a jug.
And each time my doctor comes in and tells me to cut it out, because the infection could easily go to my heart, and then it’s “bye, bye.”
So when I started feeling the same old symptoms the other day, I made a preemptive strike and called my doctor during regular office hours! He put me on an oral antibiotic, Levaquin, one of the big guns, in an effort to avoid playing out that whole drama another time.
So here I am, lying in bed, going crazy because I can’t get up and DO anything!
Of course, the last couple of days have been absolutely gorgeous, and I would have MUCH rather been out driving and hiking, looking for that perfect photo.
Instead, I get to lie in bed, sipping Coke, and watching Giada on the Food Channel. I guess all in all, I could think of worse things to do.
When I am not doing that, I put on some headphones and listen to CDs or stuff from my iTunes library. At the moment I don’t know WHAT I am listening to! I made a playlist called “Quirky Classical,” the offbeat (not in the literal sense!) classical music I have collected over the years. Some violin thing is playing now. Sounds like gypsy music! (I guess it’s pretty bad when you have music in your library that you don’t even know what it is!)
But a bit ago I had put on a CD I had put together a while back (you wouldn’t believe the STACKS of custom made compilation CDs I seem to have amassed. I can’t believe how many there are!)
So anyway, apparently this one was a bunch of songs that for one reason or another made me smile.
And it got to be a curious thing, as it came to mind just what it was about each song that really DID make me smile.
Most because they brought me back to a very specific time and place in my life.
The Corrs “Summer Sunshine” put me right back in our blue-green Plymouth Voyager, with the kids all packed in the back with their CD players and pillows, somewhere in I94 in Wisconsin on the way to Minnesota. The sun is shining, and Journey or Huey Lewis is thumping on the van stereo. I smiled.
And then I wondered, Did I really, truly appreciate the moment at the time?
Do we ever?
But what a blessing it was.
Another song came up, and it brought me back to another place, and I smiled. And then another, and then another…
And then it hit me how each one of those wonderful moments I was going back to was really a gift from God.
God was the one who made EVERYTHING about each one possible. He made that breathtaking expanse of the Mississippi River, He made the warm breeze of that summer day, He made the particular quality of light just as the sun was beginning to set… and most importantly, He gave me the people to share it all with.
What a blessing!
Each moment was a gift from God. Each one was really a picture of what God’s love is like.
All of God’s amazing blessings are God just trying to get us to SEE how amazingly wonderful He is.
And most of the time we just don’t get it. Or at least I don’t.
I take stuff for granted. I just don’t see it. I am in too much of a hurry to get to something ELSE.
