My family went home with a sigh of relief and a thorn removed seemingly from our chests as we heard my mom uttered, "I braved the ECG exam!" The expression painted on her face was that of gladness and thankfulness while comically enumerating the procedures done and grinning sheepishly on her cowardice. To her, facing a doctor will always be a formidable and a nerve-wrecking experience!
She was whining of occasional chest pains. Despite our incessant prodding for a check-up, a stern NO was always the reply. She loathed visits to the hospital; more so facing the doctor with facts concerning her health. This happened last week while we came to see Sarah as well as Seth and found the visit timely.
With every one's cajoling and coaxing, we triumphantly made her accede to a visit to my brother's friend who was the chief of Internal Medicine.
To this very day, I still find my Mommy's ironic ways surprising me. Sure, she takes very good care of us and tends to our every need but gets overly irate when we ask her to make a visit to any clinician whenever the need arises. She feeds us with milk and cheese and more milk; yet refuses to have a taste of them.
On hindsight, with the multitude of storms she has weathered, I think her unshakable faith in the Lord was transmitted to me by any or all of these means: osmosis, her genes, the advice she constantly gave me from my childhood, along with the bedtime stories, but more forcefully, the template of her own life.
I have witnessed her pains and heartaches from disappointments, the frustrations and the many events that served to test her faith. However, as a new day embarks, she never fails to smile and lovingly does her motherly chores because of God's imminent graciousness.
Similarly, my faith sustained me through all those years of maturing in stature and wisdom especially the initial years after my injury. His promises kept me going while trying hard to perceive the reason behind my paralysis. I kept on repeating to myself: "... Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest" (Joshua 1:9). "Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God; I will strengthen thee, yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness" (Isaiah 41:10).
With open arms and an optimistic outlook in life, I am definite that more adventures will be experienced- adventures that may test our faith and may come unknowingly and hit us all by surprise. However with unmovable faith, we will surely rise and thank Him for yet another consequential experience.
And we laughed heartily as my Mom continued to share how the pads made her feel all jittery, unmindful that the procedure was already over while my brother and his friend filled her with all sorts of stories.
Photos from Flickr
