Never allow that the haphazard is anything less than God’s appointed order, and be ready to discover the Divine designs anywhere.                –Oswald Chambers

You might be Type A if thirty-six hours in the hospital begins to resemble a vacation.

When the nurse first told me I was being admitted, the tears flowed as I imagined two nights spent in a bed not my own; a forced period away from all my “stuff,” my comfort zone. Then they put me in that bed and brought me food; then someone showed up to change my sheets and clean my bathroom. And I thought…this may not be so bad. I still didn’t want to be there, but the reality of not having to clean up my own messes was intoxicating. Sometimes it’s nice to let other people do the care-taking.

And there have been plenty of opportunities for that. My discharge papers included instructions that read like a list of omissions from responsibility: no bending over, no cleaning, no laundry, no heavy-duty cooking, no climbing stairs more than once a day, no unloading the dishwasher. But it’s funny how independence from daily activities can take on its own form of imprisonment when I realize how these tasks may just define me a little too much. I can’t drive to Target to get our food for the week; couldn’t stand around to cook it even if it were here, stocking our fridge. I can’t change sheets and scrub bathrooms and prepare for guests. I can’t get the mail, for crying out loud. But in the meantime, I’ve learned how to be cared for, how there is a difference between the “let me know if there’s anything I can do” form of solicitude that I’ve half-heartedly offered others over the years and the “we’re on our way with food” form that has been shown in recent days. I’m a member of a community now where the pastor knows our name and mentions it in our absence on Sunday morning; where the shower that I missed is now being brought to me; where The Sis and Bro-in-Law show up three times in as many days bearing food and car seat installation services. I’ll be missing the wedding of one of my best friends and receive only understanding when I share the news with her; The Mom is headed east in a couple of days with multiple casseroles. These are the gifts of grace that we are only open to receive when our own hands are empty, when our own weakness is unmasked.

As I sit with my feet propped up, ever-present thermos of water beside me, facing the window that looks out over our backyard, I see fall taking shape. Leaves drift down like snow and I realize that they can look like a mess to be cleaned up, or as something beautiful. I think about the moment I was wheeled out of the hospital and to The Husband, who waited with coffee and a copy of Us Weekly to take me home. I remember pulling up to that home, walking inside and appreciating it in a way I never had, seeing like new the improvements we made this time last year and the perfect place it is for us. I considered the truth that–even when I struggle to believe it, even when the mess cries out to me and I can’t answer, even when news is delivered that I don’t want to hear–the truth that I am always exactly where I am supposed to be. The laundry piles up, the sheets remain unchanged, the leaves fall, family and friends show up, the baby kicks safely inside, and I sit in the quiet, in my apparent weakness, as my efforts are forced to a standstill and the care I will soon give is, for now, being given to me.