![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/225\/2012\/07\/todays-gift-receipt.jpg\" "\\"today's")
<\/a><\/p>\nI woke up this morning with a swollen, painful foot and some lingering calf-cramps that I was prepared to ignore until my facebook friends intervened and ordered<\/del> convinced me to go see the doctor, just in case there was a nasty clot lingering in my veins, waiting for its chance to make a break for my lungs.<\/p>\nUnbelievably, I found a babysitter in about ten minutes flat and took off to the doctor sans<\/em> minions for the first time since we moved to Florida. Also unbelievably, the wait was about three and a half minutes, which normally would thrill me but today annoyed me since I\u2019m just getting to the good part in the first Game of Thrones<\/em> book.<\/p>\nThe doctor examined my foot and leg and pronounced it clot-free. She advised me to wear tennis shoes instead of flip-flops, advice which I will heed the day after never, gave me a Tdap booster, and then we talked a bit about the increasing frequency of my super-fun pregnancy-induced migraines. She\u2019s a good doctor, but very tentative about writing prescriptions (understandable, since there\u2019s that whole other pesky person in my uterus to worry about and all, but still annoying), so she suggested that I make an appointment with the neurologist downstairs and see if they could work together to come up with the safest treatment plan since my current meds are not exactly working. I agreed, and went downstairs to snag their soonest available appointment two weeks from now.<\/p>\n
Two weeks is like an eternity to a migraineur. It\u2019s like two centuries. Two painful<\/em> centuries. I managed not to grumble my annoyance at the receptionist and limped out of the office, mentally cursing my stupid foot and my stupid head and my stupid doctor and my stupid, interminable pregnancy. The 2 minute elevator ride improved my mood significantly, since it was punctuated by yet another<\/em> friendly stranger assuring me that my baby was going to be huge, since I\u2019m already enormous and I still have two whole months to go. <\/em>(Dear strangers of the world: never ask a pregnant woman how long she has to go and then gasp and repeat it ad nauseum<\/em>. Trust me, we know how large we are. We know how far we still have to go. You are making us want to punch ourselves and then you. Or the other way around.)<\/p>\nOn the way home, since I\u2019m just a glutton for punishment, I called my father-in-law, the Ever-Teacher. He recently had knee replacement surgery and is miserable, and he\u2019s made it his stated goal to make sure that I know what I wimp I am for constantly complaining about how hard it is to be 3000 weeks pregnant and currently husband-less. He told me about how he wrenched his knee last night and what a huge set-back it was for him, but how his wife had reminded him to accept it in a spirit of gratitude, and then asked how I was. I told him that I was miserable and he laughed a little and then reminded me that all this is a gift, \u201cto teach you how to love like Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last night I spent twenty minutes explaining to the Ogre just how tired I am, just how hard it is to be the sole caregiver to three boisterous minions when I can\u2019t even get off the couch without help, just how impossible it is for me to get a good night\u2019s sleep when he\u2019s gone, since serial killers will easily get the better of me even if I manage to roll out of bed and attempt to defend the children, and just how much all of this is his bloody fault for not being here.<\/p>\n
I haven\u2019t exactly mastered the whole \u201clearning to love others like Christ\u201d thing. But I\u2019m an expert in gauging whether or not people are loving me<\/em>. Usually I leave out the \u201clike Christ\u201d modifier and just insert \u201cthe way I want to be loved.\u201d So last night when the Ogre finally told me that I needed to change my attitude, that all this complaining was just making things harder on both of us, I sputtered angrily, \u201cYou have no sympathy for me! You have no idea how hard it is to be hugely pregnant and alone with a bunch of kids and\u00a0you don\u2019t even care!<\/em> You get to spend hours alone in the library, swilling coffee and reading and being surrounded by silence, while I spend all day surrounded by screaming, fighting, punching, biting and begging! You\u2019re so selfish!\u201d<\/p>\nYeah. He was definitely being the selfish one in that scenario. I\u2019m not even sure how I wanted him to respond. Verbal self-flagellation, maybe? Groveling apologies followed by promises to never leave again? The immediate purchase of a one-way flight home? A mail-order nanny? All of the above?<\/p>\n
The trouble is, none of those responses are Christ-like. His actual response, the one that pointed out the simplest way for some of my misery (and his) to be lifted, was<\/em> Christ-like. It wasn\u2019t sentimental or indulgent. It wasn\u2019t an attempt to make me feel better. It was my husband, loving me enough to want what was best for me, instead of just going with the easiest way to calm me down and shut me up.<\/p>\nThe totality of marriage and motherhood are gifts. There\u2019s no denying that. They\u2019re also trials, sometimes downright painful ones. But it\u2019s times like these, when the burdens seem too great to bear the the rewards impossibly distant and intangible, that are the greatest gifts. These are the times when I\u2019m forced to truly see myself, when complaining and whining and self-indulgent martyrdom utterly give out and I\u2019m left with two choices: cocoon myself in a shell of finger-pointing bitterness, or take a long, hard look in the mirror and force myself to really see what\u2019s looking back.<\/p>\n
It isn\u2019t Christ-like love looking back at me right now. It\u2019s just me, hanging pathetically from the giant cross of my own self-sacrifice that I\u2019ve nailed myself to. It isn\u2019t that I\u2019m not actually making sacrifices and working hard; I am. It isn\u2019t that my husband being gone isn\u2019t hard; it is. It\u2019s just that I\u2019ve chosen to lament the injustice of it with twice the energy I\u2019m putting into making it work. I might as well just look up and say, \u201cThanks for the thought and all, God, but this gift sucks, and you forgot to include the gift receipt.\u201d That would actually be more more honest than pretending I\u2019m suffering nobly and setting my cares aside for the greater good. In reality, I\u2019m setting the greater good aside for my cares.<\/p>\n
The thing is, the best gifts God has given me don\u2019t come with gift receipts. I don\u2019t get to return my husband when there\u2019s no longer a spark or when his eternal stoicism finally drives me to madness. I don\u2019t get to return my children when they stop being charming and adorable and wake up. I don\u2019t get to return the dark years I went through that led me to where I am today. And I wouldn\u2019t want to. I wouldn\u2019t want to return any of it, not for anything, because all if it has made me who I am and led me to these four people who surround, confound and infuriate me, and who I love desperately. This time, too, is a gift. It\u2019s a totally lame gift, sure, like getting a cilice for my birthday, but there\u2019s beauty, truth, and virtue to be found in it nonetheless. I just have to stop looking for the gift receipt long enough to see them.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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