O Lord, may You be glorified in this writing.

I woke up to no pain in my leg for the first time in weeks. I went to bed last night taking the stairs normally. I made a full dinner for my family. My leg only ached some and occasionally I felt a twinge of that stabbing pain that had me down for so long.

While I am feeling so very hopeful that all this pain and sitting are in the past, I want to remember some important things I learned:

First, I have worth regardless of how much I am contributing. When I was doing no cooking, cleaning, dog walking, taking kids outside — I was no less loved. My family doesn’t love me because they need me.

Second, my family does actually need me… though not in the ways I think. Again, I think I am needed because I can chase kids, clean, and cook. What I saw most clearly these past few weeks is that they need me to show the love of Christ. If that means letting go of some arbitrary expectations I have made for myself, that is what needs to happen. God has not said “thou shalt have a warm, fresh dinner on the table at 6pm nightly” or “thou shalt make thy children do chores every morning”. Would I be remiss to ignore my family’s needs? Absolutely. Are there other ways to feed and teach responsibility? YES.

Third, I do care what people think. I always say that I don’t care and I believe that. But I am wrong. I care deeply what people think in the sense that I am terrified that people will hate me. I don’t care if people think I’m a terrible person as long as they don’t hate me. What do I do with this information? Let it humble me. Jesus was hated to the point of people murdering Him. Did He cower?

Finally, God is good in a way that I can taste and see. No matter what. No matter who is mad at me. No matter how much I fail. God is good.