Day 16 - 20ish ... I'm Getting Lazy But I'm Not Quitting!

Well, I don't want to post if I have nothing to say, and I'm not really sure I have something to say today, except I went to get my chest x-ray this morning (another pre-op test I've had to get for my upcoming surgery) and so the fear is getting a little bigger as Friday nears.

I saw a friend of mine this morning who just happens to be a nurse at Virginia Hospital Center, and who has worked with the doctor who is doing my surgery. It's been two years since she worked with my doctor but I got the impression he wouldn't necessarily be her first choice. She said his specialty is actually some sort of brain surgery, and the other two doctors who he works with in his practice are pros at the particular surgery I'm having (and in fact, one of them was recommended to me but I would have had to wait 3-4 months for an appointment to see him so I went with my doctor instead).

My fear is that my impatience (which I have in abundance) may have caused me to not pick the best doctor, or that as a punishment for being impatient; I will have some kind of accident happen during surgery to "teach me a lesson." This is OLD stuff that comes up for me. It's that "punishing God" I was brought up with ... the one where, you make a mistake, break one of the 10 commandments, and of course God will seek justice/punish you.

 I DO NOT believe in a God like that today. (And I swear this is not a religious thing ... I mean God in terms of a higher power or whatever you choose to believe in, or even nothing at all – everyone has their own path.) When I got into recovery, one of the greatest gifts was learning to rely on and to believe in a higher power of my choosing. I chose a higher power that loved me unconditionally, that wanted what was best for me, that didn't judge, but also didn't interfere (good or bad) in my life or others. I felt like I could accept life, and all the awful things that sometimes occur – cancer, senseless acts of violence, children being hurt, etc. – if I no longer believed in a God that was a puppet master "healing this one because he/she was good, but letting this one suffer because he/she needed to learn a lesson." I also struggled with the Jesus concept I had been brought up with ... the one that says you won't go to heaven if you don't accept Jesus as your eternal savior, etc. I kept thinking to myself, what about those individuals on some remote island who have never heard of Jesus? Are they not going to be allowed into heaven, despite living a good life, simply because they were never taught about Jesus? That just seemed wrong to me.

Again, I'm not getting into a religious debate here. I'm simply sharing my journey in finding a God I personally could believe in.

I realized, for me, my own humanness was my undoing. I was determining what actions were good and which were "sinful", when in reality, I have NO CLUE what God thinks or doesn't think (or even if God thinks at all). So I mostly stopped judging my actions and just tried to live as best as I could. I tried (and continue to try) to follow that book, “All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten.” If you haven’t read it, it’s wonderful, if you don’t feel like it, no big deal. In short, it really boils down to treating others how you would like to be treated.

So I’m not sure why this fear is coming up today.

Or, maybe I do … I probably answered my own question in this post. I’M HUMAN.

Won't you join me in being a human being today too? :-)