Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Holiday Hatred

I am beginning to hate holidays.  On Valentine's Day, one should look forward to chocolates, flowers, and sweet, sweet kisses, not surgical procedures, days in the hospital, and pain.  So, let's check of Valentine's Day 2012 as an unromantic holiday although I did fall in love with my orthopedic surgeon, the nursing staff at Queen's Hospital, and the support staff.  I must also admit that my love affair with my husband was renewed as he took such good and thoughtful care of me during my recovery.  So maybe this holiday was not a total washout.

Then as we began to look toward Easter, the Sunday services, the Easter luncheon at church, the Easter dinner at our friends, our outcome was stymied by a pain in the lower right quadrant of my abdomen on Saturday.  Things were not quite right as I lay in bed trying to sleep off the pain.  We went to the Emergency Room to find out that I had appendicitus.  So I had an appendectomy and spent the night at the hospital.  Easter morning came and the blessing was that I was able to go home.  We did not make the Easter Sunday service, the Easter luncheon at church (which I heard was simply fantabulous), or the Easter dinner at our friends.  (I was going to make Ina Garten's panzanella - bread salad, pickled beets with pickled eggs, and deviled eggs.)  Instead we went home and had some quiet time.

If Easter is the marking of a new day, I would say that it is the marking of a new understanding that things happen and that we cannot control all the circumstances.  There is a plan that defies human understanding and there is no such thing as a coincidence.  Everything happens for a reason and our challenge is to discern the reason and take action that is prescribed by our Heavenly Father.  We often jam things up by trying to do OUR own will.  That is when we get in trouble.  We have to surrender to do HIS will.  When we humble ourselves and Follow THE Plan, the outcome is always good.  When we try to do OUR own will too often, we get humbled by circumstances.  When this happens, we should not lament but rather accept that perhaps we thought too much of ourselves and our roles in life.  Surrender to the will of God and blessings will follow. 

This is what I have learned.  But just in case, when I have my second knee replacement surgery, I hope that it will not fall on a holiday.