I Am Blessed

Close on the heels of a great Christian Women's Retreat I attended with my daughter last month was a chest cold. Mine that is. So we're talking major life adjustments here...staying at home, utilizing every cold remedy known to man for at least a three-week stretch. My pulmonary condition demands extra measures that I have cultivated over the years that keeps this a stay-out-of-the-hospital event for me.

My home becomes a quasi-hospital with my own nebulizer for breathing treatments, along with all the medicines that have proven most successful for keeping my colds from turning into major bronchial/pneumonia episodes.

Fortunately, this time was no exception. I have recovered enough to finally return to church services, and even managed to sing with the choir this weekend. I have also returned to my bread ministry, experiencing not only the pulmonary exercise I get from kneading four loaves of bread, but the joy of seeing people enjoy the fruits of my labor.

For instance, when I called my next-door neighbor and asked if she could send one of her kids over to get another loaf of bread, there was a knock at my door, even before I hung up the phone! Then, when I delivered another loaf to a friend of mine, she indulged in two slices of the bread while we visited. She kept apologizing for eating in front of me, but I reassured her I had already had lunch. It was fun watching the obvious pleasure she got from eating my bread.

Just when I feel like my caregiving days are over now that my husband's gone, I get reminded that perhaps I still have something left to give to others. This knowledge is what keeps all caregivers going. And if you have tended to forget, just know that you do make a difference, and whether you always see it or not, that difference is often in you. Giving of any kind is a blessing to the giver.