Tuesday, January 1, 2013

The Refiner's Fire



New Year. New Rules. New roles.


The thing that I've recently discovered is that in the midst of the refining process comes a certain peace. Well, you either find peace or pain. The choice is yours. I seem to have chosen 'peace'. Thank God!

Mummy has reached a new (low) plateau. Several months ago, I had said that I was not interested in having to render bathrooming assistance. With this disease, however, you don't get a whole lot of choices. You do what you have to. The choices are: assist or, in this case, wait for some nasty infection that we could ALL get. So, you step in and assist as required.

This morning, B woke up before I was ready to get out of bed, but once you hear her moving around, you really do just have to 'shake your vial' - her expression for get up and get to it - and see what is what. Once I stepped out of my door, I could sense that there were issues I'd have to address. I just hopped to it, cuz, what the heck else do you do?

Yesterday was an especially difficult day but I hoped the challenges would be confined to yesterday. I had hoped that the brain would reset overnight, and things would be more normal today. Well in many respects they are. Mummy was able to feed herself but the toileting problem seems to have persisted. New Year, new rule, new role for me. So it is.

With every change, every negative change, more of me must be refined. I have to learn to roll with it. I accept that there is a part of me that will, and does resist, at first. I typically start out saying that  there is a point beyond which I am unwilling to go, a line I will not cross. Eventually though, I go beyond, I cross the line because I must. That is the effect of  refinement. Do I know where any of this is going? Nope. Do I want to? Nope. Do I want to go where this is going? Probably not. Am I going to go? Yup. Refinement.

Even with all the refinement though, the self remains and with it, its need to be preserved. There really will be lines that I cannot cross. There will be things I cannot do. I'll know them when I see them. I pray. I've recognized them before and I will again. I pray. No amount of refiner's fire, knife at my back, dogs nipping at my heels or whip or cattle prod will push me over them. I pray. My self and its need to be preserved will save me.

I pray.


No comments:

Post a Comment