I was thinking back over the last ten or so Thanksgivings and more often than not, I’ve been sick with some type of ailment or another.  It seems like I always get knocked down a peg or two at the end of November.  This year was no exception, but instead of having the flu or a pulled back that required copious amounts of muscle relaxers for me to even think about getting out of bed like I’ve had in years past, this year it was my eye that was giving me grief.

I woke up Wednesday morning and every now and then, I’d get a shooting pain in my right eye.  Lovely!  I pulled my contacts out, figuring that I’d probably just worn that pair for too long.  On Thursday, my eye was killing me.  I diagnosed myself with dry eyes (after a long conversation with Dr. Google that made me bounce back and forth between thinking I had a Corneal Ulcer or some type of fungal infection).  So, on Thanksgiving Day, I went to Wal-Mart to get eye drops (yes, I fought the idea of buying into the commercialization of the holiday, but my eyes were really hurting!) 

Here’s a funny side story…the night before Thanksgiving, I was at my beloved Publix doing my Thanksgiving shopping (yes, I know, I procrastinate) and I talked to my favorite grocery bagger.  He was so thankful that Publix was going to be closed on Thanksgiving Day.  I agreed that I thought it was wonderful.  He talked about the “good old days” when even the malls were closed every Sunday.  He said that some days just used to be sacred and no one ever would have thought of being open on Thanksgiving.  I told him that I wished we could go back, not necessarily to those times (I like my iPhone and the internet too much to want to head back to the ‘70s) but to a point when things actually did close once and while.  Yep, we were pretty proud of ourselves and our belief that stores should be closed on Thanksgiving.  So, guess who I saw at Wal-mart on Thanksgiving Day?  Yep, you guessed it!  He looked at me somewhat sheepishly and I looked at him somewhat sheepishly.  Maybe his eyes were bothering him, too.

Once I got home and put the eye drops in my eyes, they did start to feel better, but by Saturday afternoon, they were still bothering me.  So, I bit the bullet, loaded both girls into the van, and headed to the eye doctor.  Where it took him .327 seconds to tell me that no, I don’t have a Corneal Ulcer or a fungal infection or a corneal abrasion or even pink eye.  On the surface my eye looks just fine.  He said that it was likely just eye strain from overuse and that I just need to rest my eyes and give them a little time and they should be fine.

Which was a relief because I was starting to get a little worried.  And apparently, so was Gracie.  When we were getting ready to go to the doctor, Abigail was dillydallying about getting dressed.  Gracie grabbed Abigail’s shoes and said, “Abigail, you need to hurry!  If we don’t get to the eye doctor, then Mommy is going to go blind!”  Ahhh, at least she comes by her flair for exaggeration honestly!

So, I rested my eyes the rest of the weekend and I’m happy to say that my contacts are back in and the pain is gone.

I realized yesterday, though, that the eye strain incident is actually a metaphor for my life.  I woke up at 2:00 a.m. with my mind spinning and my heart racing.  I was, for lack of a better word, panicked.  I have so much to do this week – and not my usual, oh I have to actually do laundry and gasp! cook dinner kind of stuff.  Real stuff.  Like work deadlines and picture deadlines and other work deadlines and big projects at church and on and on and on, just like all of you deal with, too.  But, somehow at 2:00 a.m. yesterday morning, all those responsibilities seemed absolutely overwhelming.  As I was adding it up in my head, I realized that I had about 150 hours of work to do this week (and honestly, that is not too much of an exaggeration).  I thought about getting up at 2:00 and getting started on my week’s work, but instead I do what I always do when I have trouble falling asleep.  I prayed for other people.  I went through my prayer list in my head and soon enough I was back sound asleep.  When I pray my own prayers when I can’t sleep, it doesn’t help – I get too caught up in what I’m worried about.  When I pray for others, I find comfort and rest.  So, instead of getting up and working harder, I rested.  And gave myself time.  Just like I did with my eyes and by the time the morning dawned, I was seeing everything clearer.  Funny how that works, isn’t it?