Place Of Extremes II

During the first couple days back in Yellowknife (from our B.C. holiday) I felt under attack. I was feeling depressed about having to be here and things were not co-operating. I felt the gentle encouragements God brought my way, they were like little nuggets of food to a starver. I felt I was coming out of the depressed state, and I guess I really was, because I began to feel angry. We finally had a car-starter installed in our van. This, folks, is equivalent to something like winning the lottery. I relished the thought of not freezing my a-- off while trying to scrape ice from the windows, interior and exterior and then waiting for the windows to defrost and my nose to thaw. I pressed the button in the warmth of my living room, the van roared to life...ahhh... I let the van warm up for half an hour that morning, to let it get nice and luxuriously warm. I bundled up my daughter, myself, our stuff and my husband's flight jacket, which he forgot, and headed out. Quickie scrape to the windows and in I went, this morning we would be on time for school... but where was my key? I checked my keychain, checked the other, fumbled through my purse, called my husband (he didn't have it), ran to the house (van still running, but no key in ignition to drive it). No key. That was it. I had had it. I blew. The only reason that key was not on the keychain is because I had to separate it to start the vehicle before Christmas holidays, yet be able to still use the remote locking system to secure my vehicle while it warmed up because it's so ___-____ cold here! Because I had no auto-start system at that time, because we were naive southerners! Can you feel the rage? I couldn't believe that after all that, I had to go and warm up our completely frozen corolla. I felt like I was being beaten when I was down, like someone just took back the morsel of food from this starver. My daughter was half-hour late for school. To top it all off I woke that morning with lower right abdominal pain. I am still in possession of my vermiform appendix, so as I raced to school with a painful abdomen I envisioned unpleasantries, not to mention the pain just ____ me right off. I returned to our place and called my good and dear friend, ah, a ray of sunshine. Then I called 'Tele-health NWT'. "Go to emergency right away, do not drive yourself, get someone to drive you, if you can't, call an Ambulance." Apparently they thought this was serious, and I felt it probably was, since I am 9 weeks pregnant (that is a joy and a gift, as we have been trying for 3 years). Sharp perspective just came into focus. My husband and I saw the beating heart of our little "sea-horse" in my womb, not in my tube. Thank you God. And my appendix was fine. It turned out to be a harmless cyst rupture on my ovary where they sometimes form as the last egg exits.

I am starting to accept, again, that there is a purpose for me being here. It surely is a place where my emotions have run the full spectrum, and God still loves me through it all. He is not threatened by me. I tell Him things that a religious person would never dare. I told Him if He put me in another situation of angst I'd never trust Him again. He told me I was like David who wrote the Psalms, and God called Him, "a man after God's own heart." God does not want us to kill our hearts, or anesthetize them. He'll take the good with the bad and work on it. My heart needed to be rescued, I certainly was not going to rescue my own heart. I was testing Him with a test He wanted me to apply to Him. "Will you rescue this living heart of flesh God?" Because a living heart feels very deeply, it is capable of extreme pain... and extreme joy. "So here is my heart God, in all its pain. Do something about it, 'cause I ain't! Waaah!" And He is. That was what He was waiting for. He is the healer and He is faithful and now He has the opportunity to prove it. I wait in expectation.