Attacking my car

Photo by David Clode on Unsplash

There are moments in life where I do not reflect the goodness of God; a follower of Christ.

Including this particular January morning as I yelled “Are you fucking kidding me?!” at the gas pump that kept disengaging before gas flowed from the handle.

I heard the words loosely fly past my thoughts “do not let the sun go down while you’re angry”.... “love is gentle, patient, kind”...as I cursed at an inanimate object.

Bless the gas tenant for not directly watching my early morning breakdown.

Crying while praying with my family in the driveway. Crying on the way to work. Crying over a gas pump.

I’m tender.

My daughter’s two year birthday is next month and as I plan what to put on a small gift registry or what we might do with her I keep thinking “what if she’s still vomiting every day?”

She has not stopped vomiting. Once per day since December 23.

She’s been to the ER twice when it’s gotten really bad. I’m frustrated by how busy I am at work (is it my fault for being this busy because I like work?) and frustrated by how hard it is to reach a doctor.

I picture myself standing in the ER stomping my heels like a toddler saying “no!” until someone says they finally know what will make her better.

Martin Luther (that German guy who told the Catholics to get back to Christ essentially) once said, “I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.”

I’ve been musing on that a lot. I have so much to do that now more than ever feels like prayer, family, step work all seem like the most crucial things. Not work or anything else.

The words “failure to thrive” swirl in my brain along everything else. Words they put on my daughter’s discharge papers.

I see them behind my eyes with every vomit, with every pushing away of food, and every time she cries just to be held by us.

Part of me wants to scream at everything and everyone. Part of me wants to be silent. No part of me wants to act normal, an act that makes me feel sick myself.

Perhaps that is why every well-intentioned “it will be ok” or “don’t stress” makes me want to recoil like a python. I remember looking at one of the small green pythons this weekend at the zoo, as it slowly tensed towards itself and waited to defend it’s curled body, and I sympathized with it.

I feel defensive and tired and wanted nothing more than to be completely still. Yet the world demands I move.