A Promise Broken

I tried to care … I really did. Twice I pushed myself out of my cocoon of pillows and covers and walked to my desk … sat at the keyboard … and stared. Guilt washed over me. I had made a promise … of when I would write … and now I was reneging on that. No words were flowing from my fingers … because no words were available in my brain.  

I was sick.  

For over a week now, my world has been a blur. Three of those days I needed to go to work. The energy I expelled in arising … sitting … showering … sitting … dressing … sitting … and then driving to my place of employment … exhausted me as though I had run a marathon.  

Weakling.  

And the nights. Coughing so hard I literally saw flashes of light in my closed eyes. Wondering if my husband was getting any sleep. In the spaces between coughing fits, I slept so hard I never knew when he showered and left for work. My daily exercise routine was cast aside.  

I know you’ve been there. It’s no fun.  

And now I’m in the recovering stage. As my mind begins to function again (scary thought) I think of those who have no recovery phase. Those injured in Iraq … who made promises to return to loved ones … and they have. But for some of them, they will never see again … never take their children for Sunday drive … or even have the ability to think clearly.  

They live with a promise broken … but for the rest of their lives.  

And so I’m grateful … for being able to breathe again … eat food that doesn’t taste like cardboard … and to know that I will recover. My heart goes out to those who deal with the broken promises … due to broken bodies or minds.  

May they feel God’s arms around them as they grasp a new way of living.

“…Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?” Job 2:10b (NLT)