Learning in small things~

Celebrating three weeks post surgery!  Two weeks at home, one week of half work days and just maybe...working normal hours this week.  I won't be able to go to patient areas until I'm six weeks post op due to the potential for injury but I'm moving in the right direction.  I know that because I am moving, which I wasn't during week one!
The Mr. & daboyz have been in charge around here and I've come realize, they shouldn't be in charge around here.  I'm tolerating the Men Folk Standards of Operation, and I don't like it.  The kitchen table has been piled with stuff since the morning of January 14 when I walked out of here to have surgery.  The pillows on the living room daybed haven't been straightened a single time.  The bed wasn't made at all until I regained enough oomph to do it my own self.  Of course, then I'd have to lie down in it to rest.  I dusted (undusted) the house myself on the Monday after my surgery when the Mr. returned to work.  I know better than to attempt to vacuum so I have convinced Mac to do that for me because certainly, no one else seems to notice it needs doing.  The bathroom?  Oh heaven help us, the bathroom.
I'm not complaining.  Yes, yes I am.  I am complaining.  Not about those men, they have done exactly as I would have expected.  Just a little whining about not being able to do for myself.  And more than whining, I am grateful that this state of temporary disability is indeed temporary.  The clutter and dust, in a strange way, gives me something to look forward to.  I am happily anticipating being able to go through each room and lovingly dust (undust), shine and straighten.  That will mean that I am really and truly recovered. 
The day when I can take all of that folded laundry off of the dresser and pull open drawers, reach into closets and up on to shelves to put it away...what a day that will be! 
That will also probably be close to the day I can hold up my arms and blow dry my hair properly!  Yay for no pony tail! 
That might be near the day that I check my incisions and find all of the margins are healed and closed.  Which will be the day I can stop packing myself with gauze.  That will be a very nice day.
Today I am easily tired and making pajama fashion statements whenever I am inside of my house.  Also, today I am deeply aware of how much I love God, how I appreciate the comfort and closeness of his Holy Spirit.  Because there were days when the cluttered kitchen table, the dusty table tops and laundry piles would have stolen my joy.  I might have even played the martyr and slowed down my own healing process by pulling out the vacuum or scrubbing the bath tub.  Thank you Lord Jesus, for teaching me to rest in you.  To find my joy and peace really and truly in your arms.  To understand what really is a small thing, like messy rooms, and to give it only small attention.  To be able say, "Ah well, soon enough I'll be up and around and how good it will be to tend to my home!" 
I love the lesson of the temporary and the eternal.  Such peace comes of embracing the wisdom of God, of understanding the significance of the stuff of life.  In the simplicity of accepting that I am tired now, but I will be able to sweep the floors in a week- I can find the great truth...there is pain and hurt now that will be forever wiped away in heaven.  In Jesus, all frustrations, large and small, are temporary things.  In him, the greatest devastations men endure are no more significant than aggravation of an unmade bed.  As easily fixed, and of no eternal significance.  It is as easy for him to reach us across the chasm of death as it is to reach across a cluttered kitchen table. 
There is no secret to navigating life.  I have to remember to fix my eyes on him.  I can stare at the laundry until I cry, or I can close my eyes and let the Spirit of Christ wash over me.  I believe, with all of my heart I believe, that it is now that I am learning to look up higher when my frustrations are small.  It is the mercy and love of God that provides me this time to be still and know the temporary is not the eternal.  Some day, I will face greater pain, should the Lord tarry.  There are no promises that illness and death will not cross my path.  But if I have learned to raise my eyes to heaven in the face of small obstacles, I will be able to keep my face turned toward the throne in the greater pain. 
As I have found quietness in my body and spirit, I have heard the voice of the Lord, "Learn my child, learn." Perhaps I should seek more knowledge and less deliverance.  What an army could be made of soldiers who learn to run toward victory than those who beg to be plucked from battle.
Let us, then, learn patience in the moments of unrest so that we might have courage in the times of war.