GOODNESS

 

Life has been beating me up lately.

My boss wants more from me at work.

My patients want more from me during visits.

My Mom wants more from me at home.

My husband...I don't know what he wants, just that whatever I am, it's not right.

And I want more from myself.

I am tired. I am stressed. I hurt. The muscles in my neck and shoulders knot like twisted steel cables. Too much of the time, I am sad. And always, I am not enough...never enough.

* * * * *

A card came for me in the mail last week.

"Sometimes it's easy to forget just how much GOODNESS there is all around us."

I wept as I read the note inside, penned in neat handwriting: "I thank God that he sent you to be my husband's nurse as I was facing some of the most difficult days of my life...I am forever grateful for all that you did..."

A clamor of voices, texts, sighs, phone calls, thoughts, and emails tells me every single day that I am not enough, even as I stumble in the traces.

Last week, one voice simply said, "Thank you."

That one voice, filled with so much goodness and kindness, is enough to propel me into another week.

Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body. Proverbs 16:24, ESV