Vitamin Ill

Today, that special day I've both hidden from and looked forward to, dawned far earlier than I had expected. Sometime in the wee small hours, I awoke to discover I had a high fever. This commenced a brisk morning of tossing and turning, which produced a fair amount of perspiration. I'm wondering if I could qualify those early-morning hours as a workout.

Now, eighteen hours later, I'm headed into another night of the same aerobic activity. My birthday, as so often happens for me (who knows why?) turned out to be rather anticlimactic. I arose. I took my children to the Vortex of Evil, McDonalds. I watched a friend's son, and then she watched my children. Neither one of us felt all that well, however, and so most of the child-watching that took place could more aptly be qualified as semi-conscious supervision. Days like this - when I'm not sick enough to be oblivious to my discomfort, not sick enough to beg my husband to stay home and nurture me, and just sick enough to want to complain, remind me how grateful I am for my health. Thank God sickness strikes me more rarely than most.

Thank God, too, for the blessing-in-disguise that this illness has brought. Illness makes me more ... aware. I'm more likely to tear up at the kind things others do for me - like the two envelopes my oldest son decorated and filled with small bits of his hard-earned chore money, for my birthday. I'm more likely to feel empathy for those who feel ill on a regular basis. And I'm far morely likely to move slower, thereby noticing things I'd otherwise overlook (in this case, the beautiful sunset-stained clouds as we drove home from my birthday bash).

All in all, it's been a sweet day - not despite this sickness, but in some ways, because of it. I got through - I didn't yell at my children. I smiled in spite of the yucky. And I remembered to say Thank You to the God who supplies both life and health, and from Whom each and every day of my existence is an immeasurable and love-filled gift.

Today I am thirty. Today I am ill. Thank You, Lord, for this life.