Gratitude

Do you remember those flip-phones that came with the plan?  It wasn't really that long ago, but it was long enough ago to make me feel old; and it was long enough ago to make things difficult for us at times because we didn't think we needed a SmartPhone (smart phone?  Smart Phone?  Smartphone?  I don't even know how to spell this).

My husband was gone, getting the oil changed and the tires rotated and the brake pads replaced (get this stuff done when you're 7 months pregnant so you're not scrambling while someone's at the hospital 2.5 hours away from home).  I was sobbing and lonely and schoolchildren were being murdered far away and my cell phone battery was dying and I didn't know what to do.

I was alone and strapped to a hospital bed and things were beeping and blinking and I had to pee.

I really wanted my Mommy and she was hours away and I couldn't even call her because my cellphone battery was dying.

I pressed the NURSE button on my television remote control (just taking a chance here because I'd already realized that technology wasn't going to see me through this by itself). A voice coming from a vague space to my left answered.  "Yes," it said, this disembodied deliverance.

"I need to use the phone and I don't know how," I responded, directing my voice to the left. The only thing in that direction was a sonogram screen and a cabinet door, but who am I to argue?

"Someone will be with you shortly," the voice responded.

I did not feel comforted.

I waited.

There was a knock on the door and my nurse came in.

"Hi, Mrs. Shea.  I'm Laurie."

"Hi."

"How are you this afternoon?" she asked brightly.

I began to cry again.  I cried because it was afternoon, and I didn't realize that the day was passing so quickly.  If it was afternoon, than my daughter should be out of school and we should be talking about her day, and I was missing her.  How was I?  Not well at all!  I missed my husband, I needed my daughter, I was aching for my Mom, I wanted my sister by my side so badly.  I was 33 years old and I felt like I was 13.  I felt like a little girl who was lost without her family.

Laurie offered to call my family for me, but she saw that my phone battery was dying.  She asked if I had my charger with me; I didn't.  The hospital phone only takes credit cards and I didn't bring my purse in the hospital with me, so it was wherever my husband was.

Laurie left the room and came back with her personal cellphone.  She told me to call whomever I needed to call and she'd be back in 30 minutes.

I called my sister, who told me she was already on her way.  I called my dad, and he said the same thing.

I called my mom.  Her voice is so amazing.  She's a perfect Southern Lady with perfect Southern manners and gentility.  I don't remember what we said, but I remember that I felt stronger after talking to her; I felt emboldened by her generosity.

Laurie came back.  She and I chatted for a few minutes about her kids and her church and my job.  She asked me if she could pray with me.  And so we did.  And then she left to see her other patients.  And I was alone again.

And all of a sudden, I felt something.

Gratitude.

I felt so grateful to be right where I was right at that moment.

What?!

It's true.  At that moment, I would not have traded life with anyone.

"I was sitting in a hospital room all by myself, waiting for a nurse.  Two and a half hours away from home, my husband was driving away from me to pick up our daughter.  My parents and my grandmother and my sister and her family were six hours away.
I was alone and scared, clutching an outdated cellphone with a dying battery, watching the breaking news of a school shooting in Connecticut."

And I didn't want to move from that spot.  I can't explain it; but I knew that I was right where I needed to be.

And then there was a knock on the door and I saw two little white shoes moving beneath the curtain.  They stopped.

"Look who it is!" I heard my husband say.

The curtain was shoved dramatically aside.  "Mommy?" my beautiful daughter demanded.  "What are you doing?  Where's my brother?"

Gratitude.

Not only had my husband driven so far and done so much just to bring me our daughter, but he'd also reminded her of the brother that was coming.

I looked up at my husband and I gazed into his face.  He was tired.  It showed in the creases of his eyes and mouth.  He was only 29 years old and he already needed a break.  But I also saw a fierceness and a protectiveness.  I saw strength and love.  He bent over my bed and he kissed me.  It was passionate and sincere.  It's so strange to think about, but the previous August we celebrated our 5 year anniversary.  Our 5 Year Anniversary Of Knowing Each Other.  We'd only met five years ago and here we were, fighting together for the life of our second child.

This was an answer to the prayers.  The answer wasn't spontaneous healing of an infant.  The answer was a change in perspective.

My whole life I'd been praying that God would change the world around me.

My whole life I'd been ignoring what he was telling me.

He won't change the world; that's why He gave us free will to make our own choices.

He will change us.  He will change how we perceive what comes our way.  He will change how we react, if we allow Him to.  

We shouldn't just react to the world around us; we should change the world from within.