Embracing suffering [Lent, week 1]

Last evening, during a conversation where various family members were mourning the loss of sugary foods, Natalie said, "Mom, you could give up your GALL BLADDER for Lent!"  I like the way this girl thinks.

The truth is that I've been suffering about suffering for the last week. I caught myself one day lamenting the delay of giving up the foods and activities I meant to give up for Lent because this blasted recovery from surgery was keeping me from being up and around, eating normal foods, and doing normal activities that I wanted to give up. Written in black and white this way, it makes me sound a little loco -- and, maybe I am. Give me credit that not many minutes later -- and I'm convinced it was only because smarter people than me are praying -- it occurred to me that, perhaps, the suffering my Father wishes me to embrace is symbolized by this horseshoe pattern of  pinkish, blackish holes healing up on my quivering belly. How perfectly ironic to miss the point of suffering while I've been staring toward my naval.

[Almost exactly 14 years ago to the day -- waiting for our sweet Kendra Jenee.]

My husband will tell you that I am pretty hearty when it comes to tolerating pain.After all, in my lifetime I've endured more than 55 hours of child-bearing labor plus one little darling who refused me labor pains, but chose, rather, to enter the world all plump and happy only after I allowed medical professionals to trace like a six-inch scar across my abdomen, rearranging my internal organs to give her a grand entrance to this world. Enduring most of that suffering with a stoic cheerfulness that would make my Baptist grandmothers proud, I'm pretty confident about my ability to deal with physical pain.

But this recovery is more shadowy than childbearing. I didn't get to see the offending member, the incisions look like a pretty picture of connect-the-dots compared to that other ugly scrape lower on my belly.  Plus, there's no noble result from my pain. Nothing I can take a picture of and post for the world to see. Really, the gall bladder must be like the ugly stepchild of organs, right?  We don't even need gall bladders, for crying out loud, so why all the fuss once one is gone missing?

I'd go through surgery any day to get this result!

But, fussing I am. And I can't seem to help myself. No amount of blue-collared, bootstrap-raising, good cheer is keeping me from crying about my suffering every day. More than a week after the event. Still.