Ugly Beautiful (30 Days of Gratitude)

I don't like being sick. I am a terrible sick person to be around - ask my mother. I get really whiny, complain a lot, and I hate taking medicine so I usually prolong the sick time period. Being sick is an ugly thing - it feels gross, it looks gross, and I would rather stay away from it at all cost.

I think I'm getting sick. I am not happy with that. Yesterday I was freezing at work, my body ached, and I thought I had a fever coming on. So instead of plowing through with the busy evening I had planned and the busy following morning, I basically stayed in bed.

What good can come from being sick?

While I felt pretty crappy, I had was forced to rest, forced to sit, forced to just be instead of running around all the time.

So many times I complain that I'm not getting enough of something - enough rest, enough time with Jesus, enough sleep, enough time to eat at home but I don't do anything about it. And Jesus being the loving God he is, sometimes has to force me to sit still. And sometimes that happens by being sick. So what seems like an annoyance, an ugly interruption to my planned day - turns out to be something beautiful. The answer to something my soul longed for. So I am thankful for the ugly-beautiful, for the ways God provides when I resist, the ways I am forced to be still, and for the unexpected ways God gets my attention.

And I'm grateful that I could watch the Fast and the Furious. I now own the first 5. Yes that happened last night too.