Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Call

This four-letter word has plagued me for the last 7 years.  It has meant commitment, long nights, be ready any time, no traveling, phone can ring at any moment, minimize expectations, continue minimizing expectations, if he will or will not be called, called in, called to talk, called to read a fax, called to wake up and speak a foreign language (sounds like to me) out of a dead sleep. Who knows, with c-a-l-l.

As I read Naomi one of the A.A. Milne chapters about Eeyore's Birthday, I remembered how it was just about a year ago that I was able to read aloud again.  But now we are bordering on reading books that have many words and a few small pictures every other page or so.  And I can still read aloud - through the whole thing, Eeyore voice and all.  However, in general, I have not been as spunky as I hope I could be.  You can see it around my eyes, basically Mike and very close friends notice.  As we are staging the house and cleaning a lot, making meals, planning and buying groceries, and preschool hunting, house hunting, etc.  - I have definitely been consumed and sucked in to projects, not taking adequate time to rest and eat.

As far as I can understand from my last neurologist appointment, this is the leveling out of Myasthenia Gravis, in me, probably for life.  My conditions got immediately better after the thymectomy last April, and continued to improve throughout the summer and early winter.  The last few months, though, I have needed naps, more Mestinon, and am sticking with a daily low dose of prednisone. I read between the lines and called it "maintenance."  And my neurologist nodded.  Yes.  My call now is to keep Myasthenia Gravis under maintenance, which for now, is to take medicine and rest daily.  It comes far and few between with two little ones, but physically I am capable of a lot.  Running through the zoo, making the home and meals, and enjoying this journey of being with the little ones and anticipating this next new chapter with Mike.

That may seem like a downer, and is definitely not my first choice of how to live.  My perfect definition would be bustling around doing doing, and doing some more and then sitting and sitting.  Wherever the wind blows me, then get up and do some more.  As it is helpful for us to all have order and design, the same way creation was crafted together, so the limitations of Myasthenia Gravis are a good trial for me to have.  It was good for me to stop completely last year, and now to know I am limited.  All throughout my life I have been a part of music programs, theater programs, and invent something or improve something greatly.  Then called to step away, move away, and let go.   Good thing.  If all of these physical muscles and programs were still run by me and my ideals of over the top productions, I would definitely be consumed with myself, as the center of my world.  The only one I need: me.  I definitely would not need to rely on God for anything, because I would think I had it all together, my own little created world.  So glad to be freed from myself.  Aren't we called to deny self, anyway?
 
So, we think we are called to a specific location for Mike's new job. Contract in hand! The location, I will leave up to your imaginations or private texts and calls.  I'm glad that when God calls a husband to go somewhere, he also calls the wife and family.   I am glad that we both have a strong peace about moving, amidst occasional grieving of moving away from community and farther from our families, the peace of God that transcends understanding is definitely here and guarding our hearts.

And there will be more call.  If the said schedule for next year stands, it may be one in 7 weekends and maybe a few weekdays a month. We're currently at one weekend in 4, and one weekday a week.   That's quite an improvement.

What does call mean to you?




I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge—even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you—so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. (1 Corinthians 1:4-9 ESV)