For the love of illness

A vomit bug has just arrived in our home. I was in a work meeting for an hour or two this afternoon. When the meeting ended, four calls had been missed on my phone... 2 from school, 2 from the Zimbabwean. Oh. No.

Within an hour I was home with vomiting child, guzzling wormwood & clove tincture, taking probiotics, echinacea, vitamin C, anything I could find (!) in the hope of avoiding it myself. I cooked dinner while I helped one child with maths homework, while I helped the other child with vomiting. Later I attempted to listen to an online uni lecture that I'd missed today, again while tending to retching child at the same time.

Eventually it was all too much. All activity paused. I sat on the sofa to focus on heaving child.

Secretly I don't mind a vomit bug. Well, not the bug itself but the golden moments of expanding heart that it brings. The lights are dim, the sounds of pipes, guitar and waves lull my little one, while I rub his back, when he has nothing left to eject. His body surrenders to sleep - if only for an hour - and his soul's glow simmers down, but is still present, warming his usually strong physical being. And that there is the golden grateful vomit-bug moment.

Today is Thursday. On Sunday I was the one getting the rub down. My head pounded and threatened to split, while my two little boys tucked me into bed. One lay either side of me. One stroked my hair, the other rubbed my back, and that's how we all fell asleep. My sleep was fitful. I stirred and felt the splitting still going on. I was in pain but was so very happy... bathed in the love of my children, who had stopped fighting and jumping and tackling and pushing my buttons long enough to just give me all of their goodness.

The vomiting one is lucky to have his mama loving him.
I'm blessed to have them, to be the one to rub their backs while they - the very essence of them - bring love into and out of my heart.

I give thanks and praise for the vomit bug
for stopping me in my tracks
for reminding me what's what.

Blessed be,
Amen.

What's your deepest fear?

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Marianne Williamson