on a back porch at Christmas time

I had big ideas for this Christmas break. big ideas. I made a Christmas bucket list that included knit socks, learn to play a Christmas carol on my mandolin (which I haven't touched in three years), decorate Christmas cookies, go ice skating. I think the only thing I achieved was watching White Christmas while drinking Baileys and playing poker with the family. And then I got sick. I came home under the weather as my father would say and then it just took a turn for the worse. The worse being laying in bed with a fever and being grumpy and unrealistic and mean. When I'm sick, especially fever-sick, it goes all the way into my bones and changes me. No big plans for this break, just grumpy, cranky, people-alienating days of believing all the lies. You know how sometimes in the olden days, people would hallucinate when they had really high fevers; I think I'm a little like that, my brain changes and everything looks and feels different. I cry really easy, I get upset and annoyed and can't think straight. But also, the Family is here. talk about distortion. I easily believe that I am unloved and unlovable with these people. It's strange, they're my family, the people who I know the best and the longest, and I love them. But when all these people are together, I often find no place for myself. I'm unheard and unvalued, my life isn't known or celebrated like the other grandchildren and I fly easily under the radar. For me, it seems that I become a little bit personless. And then because of the fever and the family, I see my entire life as being lived by this personless, unlovable thing. Looking back on these last two weeks, the spiral is magnificently stupid. My subconscious, my heart, is so quick to believe untruths, to see hurting and brokenness and then magnify it, to forget the grace of God. So I will remember.

Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise You.

Thank You, Lord,
for quiet back porches,
for Isaac and Hannah being home,
for conversations with the fringe family members who listen and love,
for Les Miserables, a movie that sings of the hurt and the grace,
for a dog that likes you, no matter what you say or do or are,
for value that You place on my soul and on my life,
for friends who are still friends when you extend no grace to yourself or others,
for the cups of coffee in earthy mugs and listening to family members talk,
for the fresh air and pieces of sunshine that give life,
for the bonfire stillness and stories,
for a little extra sleep not induced by NyQuil,
for other sufferers who also feel unseen and who I can perpetuate grace to,
for Jesus, the great High Priest who can sympathize with my weakness.

Amen, My Lord is faithful. Praise the Lord.

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