With My Girl

Something like angst visits again. I feel impossibly tired. I lie down and do not sleep. Wylie has not slept at all either today. I call her the Energizer Bunny and she grins with her whole face. 

The house is quiet as all the Duersons except Rosie, Bunny, Wylie, I are out. It's the seventh inning stretch of the Lexington Catholic baseball game as "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" plays over the speaker just over the fence of our backyard.

This place. This time. So familiar and yet, on days like these I realize that I am not home, yet. I will find no proper food, satisfying activity, or thirst-quenching beverage. The place for which I am made lies further away in time. I am left to plod on toward that Day.

Plodding is just about all I can manage these days. I have no zip in my step or twinkle in my eye. I've stopped "trying." 

The days leading up to Wylie's surgery to release her spinal cord were hard. I didn't realize it until recently. She was barely sitting at all. She wouldn't even let us hold her in our laps or arms. She must have been so uncomfortable!

I still helped her along in every appointment as the therapists and I would be creative in offering assistance in what she could do. I exhausted myself with all the trying. It wasn't until after the surgery as I witnessed Wylie healing that I learned again from the most winsome teacher God has ever made.

Wylie felt badly after surgery. She threw up. She thrashed around on her bed. She whined. She fussed. She whimpered. She let us know. She didn't hold back or "try" to be okay. We gave her meds, patted her back, prayed, problem-solved, and brought her home. She immediately fell fast asleep in her crib.

It occurred to me that Wylie doesn't ever "try." She just is. Her life is an expression of full trust and acceptance. There is no "be brave," "practice kindness," "pay it forward," with Wylie. How is it, then, she is so inspiring without ever "trying" to be so?

Maybe it's something like God offering invitations to experience abundance and fullness through Wylie's life. Her groans challenge, "Hey, would you like to minister to someone who may never really be able to say, 'Thank you' and find more satisfaction than you thought possible?" Her smiles exclaim, "Do you want a glimpse of pure joy? Here it is!" Her resilience proclaims, "Would you like to meet someone who rests in the love and grace of God and perseveres in the most difficult of trials?

Her life invites me to just be. Be where I am. Be who I am. It's in this place and time of being that I can truly rest. I'm with you, Wylie. Thanks, big girl.