Confessions of my Gratitude "Fail"

Selfishly, this has probably been the worst Thanksgiving holiday I have ever experienced.  After almost a year of working on my 'gratitude' in the every day situations of life, my Thanksgiving week has found me crabby, irritable and without words for this blog. Isn't it somewhat ironic that during the week our country has set aside to 'give thanks' I have very little to say?

Here's the situation.  In the past 5 days, I have sat in the hospital waiting room for 17+ hours.   I have spent numerous minutes waiting to pick up various prescriptions for my patient every other day since Wednesday.  Wednesday, surgery day, I was prepared to sit and wait for a long day, but I wasn't prepared for how long his post-surgery recovery took and how much pain he was in when we left the hospital, leading me to call the church I work at to have them find someone to sub for me leading worship for the Thanksgiving Eve service I helped to plan. Our Thanksgiving Day, while wonderful to be with my parents, consisted of E-man and I hanging out with my family while Ross slept fitfully, in a lot of pain on their couch.  Rather than decorating the tree and getting out Christmas decorations, Black Friday found me in the ER all day long, attempting to get Ross's pain levels under control after a terribly painful night for him.  Thankfully, we were able to be together with the Manders' clan on Friday evening for a bit which was a welcome break for me/us from the hospital and for me always feeling the burden of being responsible for Ross. Saturday was a little better (at least we were at home and I got some wash done, picked up some groceries and visited a beautiful brand new baby and helped out her parents for a bit - and we had dinner out with some great friends).  Today, after church,  Ross's pain levels spiked again, bringing us back to the ER two separate times.   Here I sit ...

They finally admitted him overnight around 11 p.m. last night.  I guess we're still in the waiting game to figure out what's going.  I've been trying to collect 'thankful' moments in the midst of everything that's been going on and hopefully I'll be able to share some of those with my blog in the near future.  Off the top of my head I'm incredibly thankful for our families and friends who have helped to care for E-man and me during the various times we have been in the hospital.  I am thankful for medicine to ease Ross's pain although I wish someone would figure out what's causing it rather than just 'managing' it.  I am thankful for the prayers of many and for a little guy who so easily goes with the flow and cutely asks me "Is Daddy happy?" He's trying to understand what's going on with us!  I'm thankful Ross stayed in the hospital overnight last night because I came home and slept really good because I knew he was in good hands.

 "Be thankful in all circumstances, 

for this is God's will for you who belong to Christ Jesus."

1 Thessalonians 5:18