Mary's Heartbeats

Sibling rivalry at its best, right in front of me, as I read through the opened pages.  An older brother and sister voice their displeasure with whom their younger brother had married.  And furthermore they reasoned, why did he have all the words from God to speak, weren't they just as qualified? Murmuring, grumbling, feeling passed over and probably a bit jealous, they were not wanting to play second fiddle in this task of leading their people to freedom.  Their discontent was only voiced between the two of them, so they thought, but the passage tells me differently, "and the Lord heard it," (Numbers 12:2).   Critical speech and comments often come out of my mouth too quickly.  They cut coldly into others opinion and leave a negative, defensive tone.  Is it no wonder then that the conversation goes downhill from there, void of any meaningful discussion, and all because I think I know better.  Unfortunately, I have tried this technique out w...

"It's not the adversity, it's how you respond." (Golf Central, 2/17/19)   I'm not exactly sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't the words that I heard.  I sat on the crinkly exam paper on the table, as I grabbed my pen and scribbled notes.  I had all my questions poised to review for what I thought would be chemo, the next step in my process of surviving cancer.  But instead the conversation became an u-turn discussion.  Perhaps, chemo would be "over treatment" for essentially no further cancer seen or evidenced by my latest surgery.  Perhaps monitoring me with scans and MRI's, possibly one more diagnostic laparoscopic surgery may be sufficient at this point. Chemo could become a personal choice, there if I wanted to really do it, but yet realizing too that chemo isn't always the final cure. . .  and could be overkill.  Seriously?  Was I really hearing this, could it be that I am being healed from cancer? I walked out of the...

Bare limbs, stripped of all their cover.   Wooden sticks line the streets, all looking somewhat like upside down root systems.  Silently they stand tall, stiffly swaying with the occasional gust of wind.  Completely vulnerable to whatever falls from the sky, be it snow or pounding rain.  Seemingly, the trees are in their winter hibernation, just sleeping time away, but maybe not.  Could there be something new happening on the inside? I walk my morning route with Jasmine by my side, totally focused only on getting to eat blades of fresh green grass, and oblivious to anything higher than her knee high vision.  But my sight is captivated with the trees that remind me of my own winter sabbatical.  I am just as naked as the branches.  I too have lost my covering of health and wellness, of working as a Nurse Practitioner, and being the caretaker of my family and patients.  Pride has vanished, humble acceptance is my embrace as I am the vul...