Late this morning, I sat on a deep windowsill overlooking a crisp Fall city day and the beautiful lake. On my lap was snuggled a sweet and cuddly bald boy and we were watching a show on the iPad. I sipped my Starbucks americano and thought: “Wow, what a perfect moment. I am so blessed.” It was very like a movie scene…all lovely and right.
The truth is that I was sitting on that sill with my bald boy because he had to be out of the bed so that they could change the bloody sheets – a side effect of his last good IV site giving out and leaking all over. We were watching a movie to distract him from his bruised, battered, and swollen arms, and I was drinking coffee because I’d been up half the night after the bald boy pulled his central line out of his chest (in his sleep) and we had walked through the real-life bad dream of them telling us to keep him flat to guard against an embolism and helping to hold him perfectly still as he screamed and strained against the multiple, bloody attempts to place an IV so that he could continue his medicines and nutrition through the night.
My apologies for the graphic description. It was an intense night.
I guess my point in this is perspective.
There is the bruised, screaming child with the failed IV and there is the coffee and snuggling on the window sill. Both have been my recent reality and neither have cancelled the other out. But in this moment, there was grace given to see the joy.
“…the joy of The Lord is my strength.” Nehemiah 8:10
Choosing joy on a windowsill…
Moment by moment.
