From the time I was twelve, I’ve had a favorite mitzva – giving maaser (tithes).  When I was young this meant putting ten percent of all my babysitting money in my own charity box I kept on the ledge of my bedroom window.  When I got older, I set up a separate checking account linked to my main checking account; as soon as money came in, the first thing I would do was transfer 10% to my charity account.  This account had its own checkbook and I delighted in being able to regularly respond to requests for help from others.

Now I’m in the position of being helped, and it’s a very different experience than giving.

A dear friend called me at the hospital and asked me if we would go away for Pesach if she would make arrangements.  I immediately refused; I told her it was a luxury and we would manage to prepare for Pesach once I got home from the hospital.  (If you’ve been reading here long enough you know that in almost 22 years of marriage I’ve never hired any kind of cleaning help so you can understand that going away is far beyond my frugal way of doing things.)

Then I thought about how much stress we’ve all gone through, how traumatized the six kids are who were at home when the accident happened and what a huge relief it would be to all of us to not to have to keep pushing on.  When I was honest with myself and allowed myself to picture not having to prepare for Pesach, I felt almost weak with relief.

When I saw that a fundraiser was initiated by this same incredible friend to help our family with the many expenses we’re facing, including the costs of Pesach at a hotel, it was very hard for me.  I didn’t know about it in advance and finding out about it was very, very hard.  This is so contrary to my nature in every way.  I didn’t want to be seen as needy and pathetic.  I didn’t want people to feel sorry for me.  My ego was struggling in a huge way.  And then I saw the incredible response to it within 24 hours of when it began, and I was shocked.

It made me think of this email from a friend right after the accident.

I’m leaving the hospital! The staff would have had me stay longer but I told them I have little kids who are really missing me.  I also told them this last week and they told me there’s no doctor in the world who would release me in the state I was in.  But now it’s okay.

I am so grateful for this hospital experience.  I’ve unfortunately had a lot of experiences with hospitals in the last 22 months – two different wards for me after my last birth, six hospital stays with three of my kids that were each at least ten days long, then my mom had two hip replacement surgeries and was in the orthopedic ward and then a couple more weeks each time in the rehabilitation hospital and now I’m here.  So I’ve seen a number of different hospitals and different units and have plenty to compare to.

My stay here has been wonderful.  The staff has been compassionate, kind, respectful and reassuring.  I had a very pleasant roommate for my first four days who didn’t have any visitors and came over to introduce herself to me and to wish me well.  She looked me in the face the first morning that my bandages came off without flinching – she’s the only one except the staff who was able to do that except for dd19 – she talked to me the way she would have spoken to anyone.  When she left I hoped that I would get another roommate that was just as nice since I felt very fragile and didn’t want someone who would fill the room with lots of loud visitors at all hours of day.

Early Friday morning I got my new roommate, whose husband was verbally abusive and I didn’t know how long I could bear what I was hearing through the curtain.  They took her for surgery less than an hour after she got here and then the nurse told me she was going to transfer me to another room.

I really didn’t want to transfer.  I felt very vulnerable and my room was the last one along the corridor, on the far side of the room, where people couldn’t peer in and see me when they were walking by.  I was afraid to be in the bed next to the door, to have a roommate who would gape at me, visitors who would stare at me….I didn’t want to step out of my room and definitely didn’t want to have a new roommate watching me as I came in and got resettled.

I told the nurse I didn’t want to transfer.  She said there’s nothing she could do.  I told her it would be really hard for me.  She told me she has to move me because of concerns about me getting an infection from the person in my room who is having surgery, and they can’t put two surgery patients together.  (I’m in the burn unit but it’s combined with a surgical unit – there was only one other person here with a burn during my hospital stay so everyone else is here for some kind of surgery.  That’s why I’m noticeable, even here I look unusual.)  I asked her if they did  move me if I could be on the far side of the room and she briskly told me that there’s no way for them to guarantee that.  I wanted to ask her why she couldn’t move my roommate, who had only been in the room for less than an hour, but that sounded like a petulant child so I didn’t say anything.

A few hours later I noticed that they had taken the belongings of my new roommate away and put her in a different room.  Without saying anything to me, they decided to leave me where I was; although I didn’t make a big deal about it, they realized that I was distressed to move and changed their plans to accommodate me.

Aside from giving me a feeling of security that I could stay where I was, I had the luxury on Shabbos of having my own room (that continued for an amazing four days!).  I was able to close the door to my room and have an unusual amount of privacy for a hospital patient.

I didn’t think my feeling of privacy would last long – my experience in all the other hospitalizations is that the staff habitually fling curtains opens, turn on lights irrespective of the time of day or night and chastise you if you make any attempt to turn off the overhead light or close the door.

Do you know what happened here?  For the entire time I’ve been able to have only natural daylight in my room and keep the bright overhead lighting off.  One of the first days a nurse asked why the lights were off and turned them on, but when it was evening I turned them off again and no one said anything again.  For a week and a half!  A couple of times when they came in the late evening to take my stats they turned on a little side light but even then turned it off when they finished, without me saying anything.

When I closed the door, no one told me I wasn’t allowed to do that.  In fact, some of the nurses and cleaning staff even knocked before they came in!  Knocking, in a hospital!  To me this is a contradiction in terms.  Almost all of them closed the door behind them when they went out.  They not only sensed my desire for privacy but have actively been respectful of that.

I have a window on my side of the room and I’ve been able to keep it open all day and most nights and have plenty of fresh air.  I’ve been able to talk to my family on the phone without worrying about disturbing a roommate.  I’ve been able to listen to relaxing music and an audiobook played aloud.  Since each room has an adjoining bathroom, I had my own bathroom and didn’t have to time my showers or bathroom visits with anyone else’s needs.

I don’t want to give you the wrong impression – it’s not at all like being at a luxury hotel – but hospitals can be a hard place to be emotionally when you need to recuperate.  God clearly knew I needed a lot of quiet and space to feel my way through this situation and find a perspective that is nurturing and respectful of myself.

I wasn’t sure when I would be ready to leave, and for a while I wondered if I’d ever be ready.  Yesterday I felt a strong tug that I needed to go home because of my kids, but I didn’t feel ready yet.  Making the decision to stay one more day has given me a chance to have a sense of closure and to express my gratitude to the nurses who were so kind to me at a time when I really needed that kindness.  I wrote a letter to all the staff here – and noted on the envelope that it included the cleaning lady – to tell them how much their compassion and sensitivity meant to me.

I wrote another letter to the head nurse, telling her I’ve overheard a lot of staff interactions during my stay and there’s a noticeable lack of yelling, shaming and blaming.  (Without going into specifics, I can say this is totally different from things I’ve overheard in different hospitals/wards.)  I told her that it’s a testament to the environment that she’s spent years creating – beginning with the respectful and non accusatory way that she treats her staff – that we patients are able to benefit from a calm and pleasant atmosphere.

Particularly during the first two shifts after I was admitted I couldn’t see the nurses who were taking care of me (after that I could see a shadowy outline and then eventually could see normally) but the sound of their voices and the feeling of their hands bandaging my face was very soothing.  Five days after I was admitted, two nurses came in to change my linens, and one told me how good I looked.  The other one told her that it was a huge change, that she had been the one who admitted me.  I exclaimed in surprise, “Are you Rachel?” I told her that I had been waiting for her to be on shift again to tell her how much her care meant to me in those early hours.  I felt her kindness coming through without being able to see her – and when I saw this older nurse with a stern face I realized that just like she saw past my burns to me as a person, hearing instead of seeing her made it possible for me to see past her businesslike exterior straight to her kind heart underneath.

How often do we miss what the true essence of a person is because we get distracted by how they look?  Probably most of the time.

Here’s a song that I’m listening to today – now with headphones since on my last morning here got a roommate. 🙂  This is from an audio program by Louise Hay titled ‘How to Love Yourself: Cherishing the Miracle that You Are’.  I love music in general and songs used well can be so powerful – if they’re filled with good messages they have an added benefit since as they begin to play themselves over and over in your mind, you create new neural pathways in your brain that will better serve you than the old scripts they’re replacing.  This feels like just the right message as I wait to be discharged and get ready to face the real world.

I love myself just the way I am
there’s nothing I need to change
I’ll always be the perfect me
there’s nothing to rearrange.
I’m beautiful
and capable
of being the best me I can
And I love myself just the way I am.

(skipping two stanzas)

I love myself
the way I am
and still I want to grow
The change outside can only come
from deep inside, I know.
I’m beautiful
and capable
of being the best me I can
and I love myself
just the way I am……
I love myself…. just the way I am.

Grateful for my hospital stay, grateful that I’m ready to leave and looking forward to being home!

Avivah

This will be a bit of a roundup post!

On Thursday night dh told me Yirmiyahu was throwing up and out of sorts.  I asked dh to take him to the doctor just to check that everything was normal – I worry about him more than the other kids because of his history.   The doctor said a stomach virus is going around.

But in this case I think the virus isn’t the problem; I think he’s heartsick that I’m gone.  Interestingly, ds15 and dd19 both came to the same conclusion independently.

I speak to him at least once every day and yesterday he sounded much better!  Dd17 took Yirmiyahu to his speech therapy appointment yesterday.  We’ve had two appointments with her in the last nine months but once again she established a nice rapport with Yirmiyahu and he had a good time with her.  Dd called to tell me that the therapist said Yirmiyahu is very cute, intelligent and highly communicative.  I can’t argue with that!

Here’s a picture that warms my heart.  No, ‘warm’ is too lukewarm a term.  It gives me tremendous joy to see dd19 with her siblings again and I was so happy they came to see me here at the hospital.  She is awesome.  Every one of them is awesome.  I am so, so, so blessed.  From left to right, dd19, dd17, ds15.

Some nurses at the hospital asked me if its true I have ten children – not sure how they found out since I don’t remember saying anything – and one asked me, “Isn’t that hard?”  I’ll tell you what I told her, it felt like a lot when they were growing up, but all the work that I put in was a drop compared to the oceans of joy that I have watching them as they’ve gotten older.  Did I say how lucky I was?  I positive I’ve gotten some of the most wonderful children on the planet.  It’s very humbling.

As for me, I am doing really well.  I’ve been enjoying the hospital cuisine – seriously, the food is quite decent and I don’t have to shop for it, cook it or clean up after it, which makes it taste that much better!  I haven’t been able to get extra protein even though the doctor said it’s very important to regenerate the skin on my face.  Dh brought me a container of roasted chicken to keep in the patient fridge to supplement what I get here but it disappeared within a day before I had a chance to eat any!  At every meal I ask them if someone doesn’t take their tray if I can have the extra protein from it and though I don’t love having to ask and feel like a nudnik every single time, sometimes I end up with extra.  I look at asking for extra portions as a way to nurture myself even when it’s uncomfortable.

My face is looking wonderful.  Well, me and the doc tors think so but obviously we have a different perspective than other people.  Other people look at me and then quickly look away, and then when they think I’m not looking, look at me again.  It’s hard to see people look at you and flinch.  The first week I kept my face turned away and couldn’t look at anyone who wasn’t on the staff but now I keep my head up and meet people’s eyes when they stare at me.  This is such major progress for me – I couldn’t bear the thought of having to walk out of this hospital.  When I say I couldn’t bear it, it would have been literally impossible for me to do.  Even mentally I couldn’t picture how I would do it.

I had something wrong with my eyes after the accident and when they told me they were going to send me to the eye doctor in another part of the hospital to have it checked, I refused to go.  The doctor here wanted to know why I was refusing and I told her, I can’t have people staring at me.  She understood and offered to send me with my entire face bandaged but that doesn’t exactly keep people from looking at you, you know?  When I was bandaged I didn’t want anyone to look at me, but when my bandages were off I felt so exposed and vulnerable.  (My eyes were very sore from the fluids draining out of my wounds and one eye was turning in – maybe the trauma to the nerve? – but I’m happy to say that with time it’s gotten better.)

Ds20 (who stayed in Jerusalem since I wasn’t home for Shabbos) asked the other kids who visited me how I looked and dd17 carefully said, “It’s a little surprising.”  That’s a nice way to put it and I was so grateful to my kids that they were able to look beyond the externals and have a nice visit while they were here.  

But really, I do look much better.  Like a thousand times better, without exaggeration.  It’s in the foreseeable future that all the blisters and burn marks will be gone.  I hope I won’t have scarring but the doctors won’t comment on that, they said they can only talk about what is front of them right now and have no way to know what will happen later.  Right now they’ve given me clear instructions for the next six months that I’m to have absolutely no exposure to the sun.  Living in a Mediterranean country with nonstop cloudless sunny days, that’s not a simple matter and this is going to require some lifestyle changes for me in many ways.

The first change will be on the fashion front.   When I leave the house it can only be very early in the morning or late in the afternoon when the sun is at its weakest, and I’ll need to wear a hat and the strongest sunscreen there is.  So I’m going to have to find some awesome hats.  If you have suggestions for where to buy nice hats at a good price in the Jerusalem area, please let me know!  (They have to be some color except for black because black doesn’t suit me.)  It’s going to be a long time until I can do window shopping – unless it’s at night! – so I’d appreciate your help in finding suitable stores.  If there’s a website that I can order from here in Israel, all the better!

A number of you have mentioned Mrs. Green in Jerusalem who is famous for her knowledge about burns and her creams.  Dh got her cream from someone in Karmiel within 24 hours of me being hospitalized but Mrs. Green told him while I’m in the hospital I should do exactly what they say and not use her cream.  She doesn’t give advice over the phone; she needs to see you before making specific recommendations.  Hopefully dh will be able to borrow a car to take me to her on Thursday night (she only sees people on Sunday and Thursday nights) for an appointment. 

Overall I’m quite optimistic.  When my husband met me in the ER, he heard me tell the doctor I couldn’t feel my lips.  I don’t remember what the doctor told me – probably something like ‘It will be fine’ because that’s what everyone said – but my husband realized that I was asking if I still had lips.  It was a huge relief when my husband reassured me that they were still there.  After the accident I was afraid I had lost my face forever, but I haven’t.  It’s going to take time but my features didn’t melt, it’s only the old layers of skin that are gone.

The nurses have jokingly told me that I’ve gotten the equivalent of a deep chemical peel that people pay a lot of money for and I’m going to look better than ever when I heal.  I smiled but told them, “I also paid a high price for this”.  I didn’t have wrinkles or fine lines in my face so I can’t say getting rid of them was a side benefit but I’m sure my pores could have used a deep cleaning and now even better than a deep cleaning – I’ll have new pores!  🙂

Avivah

There have been a few things I’ve wanted to write about, but haven’t done it because people might falsely assume I’m always positive or upbeat.  A lot of the time I am but sometimes I’m not.  I’ve always tried to be honest with you here and the last thing I want people to come away with is that you have to be smiling and thanking God for every bad thing that happens to you, no matter what.   Sometimes life hurts – a lot.  What I want to write about today is the tears.

The morning of the accident, I was contemplating a question someone sent me about disabilities.  I was thinking about how hard it is when you look visibly different because people don’t give you a chance to show who you are.  As this thought went through my mind, I realized I had never consciously been grateful that this wasn’t my challenge.  Right that minute I said out loud, “Thank you God for giving me a normal face.”

I find my tendency towards premonitionary thoughts like this a bit unnerving (eg mid pregnancy repeatedly feeling Yirmiyahu would have T21, the highway accident I was almost in a few years ago).  Why for the first time in forty years did I have this thought a few hours before my face was badly burnt?  I’m positive the soul is whispering to us at these times but what I wonder is, why?  Is it is a knowing something is going to happen, or a shadowy sense of warning that you’re slated for something to happen?  Is it a fleeting opening to help you prepare for your new reality before your reality changes?

When I was in the ambulance, I kept whispering into the wet towel I had brought to keep on my face, ‘please God, give me my face’.  And then I thought, ‘Maybe you don’t need this as part of your soul’s mission anymore and this isn’t what you should be asking for.  What you need is to ask for in help accepting God’s will’.  I swallowed hard, very hard – and thought, “Please Hashem, help me to accept whatever Your will is for me.”  After a long pause I whispered, ‘And if it’s Your will, please give me back my face.’    

I screamed twice when I was burnt, but I haven’t cried that much.  There have been a few little times here and there but mostly whatever tears I felt welling up could be swallowed down.

But in the last couple of days I’ve had some intense waves of sadness come over me.

On Friday morning dd19, dd17 and ds15 came to visit me for the first time.  My face was much better by then – every day is a visible difference – but I was worried how they were going to react when they saw me.  I heard ds say, “Hi, Mommy” as they came into my room but before they saw me I covered my face and started crying.  I couldn’t keep my face in my hands forever so I took my hands away as I stood up and hugged them, still crying.  As I hugged dd19 for the first time in over a year she asked me if I was crying from happiness or sadness and I said, ‘I don’t know’.  It’s a mixture.

On Friday night I went to the nurses station to light Shabbos candles, feeling upbeat and cheerful.  This was the first time I was able to venture this far from my room into the public domain – it’s about five or six steps away – but mentally letting myself be somewhere that someone who wasn’t on the medical staff would see me took a lot of courage.  As I waved my hands in front of my eyes three times and opened my mouth to say the blessing, I started sobbing uncontrollably.  It was like something cracked open inside of me.

I felt subdued as I  began my Shabbos meal in my hospital room.  As I sang Aishes Chayil/ A Woman of Valor, and got to the line ‘She is robed in strength and dignity, and she smiles at the future’ I faltered and couldn’t swallow the lump in my throat.  I took a couple of deep breaths and my voice quavered but I continued, until I got to ‘Grace is elusive and beauty is vain’.  I tried to sing this but broke down a few times before I could compose myself enough to finish the line – but a woman who fears God — she shall be praised.

After Shabbos was over I washed my face and thought how amazing it was how much better I’m doing.   Until now I’ve only asked the staff how much longer I have to stay in the hospital and assumed that their answer meant I would be better by the time I left with a little residual pinkness that would fade in a very short time.  When the nurse came in, I asked her how long it takes an injury like mine to heal. For the first time last night I had a sense that it could be much longer than what I’ve been telling myself.  Despite that I wasn’t ready for her answer.

The nurse responded that I’ll have to stay out of the sun for the entire summer – and summer isn’t even officially here.  The concern is about scarring.  My eyes welled up with tears and I couldn’t answer her without a break in my voice.  Another six months?  I needed some time to process that.  Last night I was very sad and I couldn’t sleep for a long time.

Why am I telling you all of this?  Because it’s not good to say everything is fine and not acknowledge to yourself how you’re really feeling.  Feeling your sadness and your anger and everything else we tend to not want to feel or see – and other people don’t want to see – is a critical part of coming to terms with your life and eventually having emotional peace.

This would be a much more upbeat post if I didn’t tell you all of this but one day you’re going to go through hard things and I want you to remember this – that you don’t have to be strong.  You don’t have to smile and be grateful that something bad happened to you.  You don’t have to assuage the anxiety of those around you who are much more comfortable with you smiling and being positive than with your raw emotions.

Feelings come in waves…you have to be willing to feel them when they come even if they threaten to engulf you.  Eventually the waves subside.  The waves will keep coming but each time it will get a little easier.  A storm doesn’t last forever and our tears are a tool to help us through the storm.

Avivah

I owe so much to all of you, for the prayers and good wishes and desire to help….I’ve been overwhelmed and brought to tears by your concern.  I am so grateful for every one of your comments (I’m sorry I can’t respond to each but I’ve seen them all), your emails, your tehillim…. I feel truly surrounded by love.  I’m laying low now and not really talking or writing much but want to share now out of my gratitude to you all.

(side note – To Yael Alrich for setting up a challah chain – thank you!  When forty people prepare challah dough and ‘take challah’ with a bracha – it is a powerful merit for the person it is being done for.  I am so touched by those of you who want to do this for me and your tefillos are very appreciated.  If someone wants to participate, here’s the link – challah segulah chain sign up.)

I am doing better.  Every day is a little better.

The night I was admitted to the hospital all the hospital staff who checked me told me how lucky I was.  They were talking about my eyes being spared but I assumed it meant my face, too.  So when I saw myself in the mirror in the bathroom I was horrified – there was no part of my face left that I recognized.  Nothing.  

Then my face began swelling, so that one eye was swelled entirely shut and the other eye was able to open halfway.  I didn’t think I could look worse but I did.  After two days of swelling, when I woke up one morning and could open both eyes, I felt hopeful.  Then the bandages covering my face came off, and I wished they could stay on.  I shuddered at the person in the mirror who wasn’t me, but she was…I didn’t want to see myself and I didn’t want anyone else to see me.

This morning the woman who cleans the floor came in and looking at me said, “Very nice!”  I looked behind me, thinking she was admiring the pictures of me with my kids on the wall behind me but when I looked back she was looking straight at me.  I asked her what she was talking about, and she said – “You! You look great!”  I said, “This (pointing to my face) looks great?” (In case it’s not clear, I have no part of my face that isn’t burnt except my eyes.)

She hurried to clarify, thinking she had insulted me, telling me how much better I looked than a couple of days ago.  I didn’t know who came in during the first days because I couldn’t see much so I didn’t know she had seen me unbandaged at an earlier stage.  But she’s right.  I look much better.

My face isn’t so swollen anymore, my eyes can open all the way.  My face is covered with different stages of the burns – in some places I have blisters, in some places my skin is peeling, most of my face is a dark reddish color.  I don’t look a bit attractive (that’s the understatement of the year) but it’s all much better than it was.  I would very much appreciate continued prayers for a complete recovery.

As of now I’ll be staying for Shabbos; the doctors just told me they’ll reassess my situation on Sunday.  My daughter came home after over 13 months in the US the night after my accident.  I was so excited about this visit and couldn’t wait to share with you about her homecoming.  I obviously missed it.   I spoke to her yesterday, though.  I was so much looking forward to this Shabbos…. the first Shabbos in so long that our entire family would be together – but obviously that wasn’t supposed to happen.  Hopefully I’ll be home next Shabbos and then we will have that time together. 

So that’s the update about the physical stuff.  It’s going to take time.

Emotionally, I almost strangely feel a lot of peace about this situation.  Being in the hospital without visitors or having to answer the phone is giving me time to rest and reflect.  I don’t want visitors – I just want to be by myself right now, not from a depressed way but from a place of needing some solitude.  I don’t want to talk about the accident or about anything, actually.  Posting here is the exception.

As I physically heal I’m taking time to listen to the voice of my soul, to access my inner wisdom and absorb some messages about what I’m supposed to learn from this situation.  It’s very subtle and very powerful.  This is very very very hard to do – maybe impossible – in the busyness of daily life.  So while I wouldn’t have chosen this, I’m gaining something very valuable from this experience.

Avivah

After taking a few days to think about it, we decided to put our home back on the market to sell.

I was feeling pressured trying to rid my home of dust or dirt to meet the exacting standards of potential buyers – my kids said it’s been more intense than Pesach cleaning!  After scrubbing and scrubbing, taking out all the windows and screens and washing them all, cleaning out the window tracks, dusting off the tops of the cabinets and window blinds boxes (don’t know who would have looked there but…..), I didn’t feel like my home looked better at all.  In fact, with my laser focus on dirt, I kept seeing more areas that needed to be cleaned.

Our agent wanted other agents in the city to come by yesterday to see our home since she said it’s better when the buyer’s agents personally see the home in person rather than just with pictures.  I was getting more and more uptight as the morning ticked on –  I was doing so much but didn’t have a significant feeling of progress.  When at noon I walked into the younger boys’ room and saw that ds7 decided to reorganize his shelves and move everything into a pile next to his bed and ds11 put the linen on their floor instead of where I asked him to put it, I almost burst with frustration to see a room that I thought was finished needed to be cleaned again when I still had so much to do.  

My husband was home and heard my mounting tension, and suggested I rest and try to unwind a little.  Good idea.  I was taking this waaaaay too seriously.  I asked him to let me know when a half hour went by, so I would have an hour to get things finished up before they came.

I went upstairs and chose a recording of Dr. Bernie Siegel’s to listen to, Meditations for Overcoming Life’s Stresses and Strains.  It seemed appropriate for how I was feeling that moment.  I turned it on to listen, lay down and closed my eyes.

This is what I heard, all in the slow and deliberate soothing voice of Dr. Siegel.  “……listen to your heart.  What does it want to tell you…about the pressure…that you are creating?”

I began relaxing, thinking how true it is I’m creating pressure for myself with this cleaning frenzy.  Ahhhh.  Must let go of that.  He continued, “How does it feel?” What is affecting it?  Go inside yourself- ”

“Avivah,” my husband called up in an urgent tone, abruptly interrupting my attempted meditation, “they’re here!”

What?!  It’s an hour and a half before they’re supposed to be here!  I bolt upright and rush downstairs to see that my wonderful husband thoroughly scrubbing the stovetop is in the middle of what has become quite a mess.  The stove top is sparkling but the grates and burners are all over the countertop, there are black crumbs that were scraped off that fell to the floor below, dirty rags visible – given ten more minutes the kitchen would have looked lovely, but at that moment it didn’t look good at all.

I didn’t mention that the washing machine stopped working before Shabbos so the repair man came that morning, leaving behind a working machine and a laundry room piled high with unwashed laundry. This is a room I usually have well under control.  Not this time!

I grabbed a broom to quickly sweep away the crumbs and the agents began streaming in (between fifteen and twenty) as I took a deep breath and accepted that despite my hard work that day and the week before, things didn’t look the way I wanted them to.  It was so obvious to me what a ridiculous waste of emotional energy all my tension about this visit had been.

You know what the best relaxation was?  That they were all here and now it’s not something to think about.  It was a quick visit as all of the agents went through our house – it probably took less than 15 minutes for all of them to finish.  I doubt one single one cared about my messy kitchen or the laundry piled on the laundry room floor.  I also doubt they cared about my sparkling window screens or the freshly scrubbed trissim (roll-up blinds outside the windows of Israeli homes). They were looking at the big picture, not the little details.

Having people checking out my personal space is stressful for me.  Really stressful.  I’ve had lots of time for reflecting on what thoughts are causing me to be so tense as I’ve been scrubbing during the past week.   Because I know that the real stress isn’t coming from people coming to look but the thoughts I’m thinking.  While I can’t control what people will be thinking as they view our home, I can control what I think of what they’re thinking!

Avivah

Overcoming our fears is something we all have to do, usually more often than less.  There are lots of great quotes out there that relate to different aspects of challenges and the fears that come along with that, but here are some quotes that I’m finding helpful right now.  They remind me of what I already know and help me keep my focus in a positive place.

(I unfortunately don’t know who to attribute some of these to, but none of them are mine!)

Fight your fears and you’ll be in a battle forever.  Face your fears and you’ll be free forever.  Lucas Jonkman

FEAR – Forget Everything And Run – or –  Face Everything And Rise…it’s your choice.

You can’t change what you refuse to confront.

Fear doesn’t shut you down – it wakes you up.

Do not fear change.  Change fear.

Courage is one step ahead of fear.

Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of every fear is a freedom.  Marilyn Ferguson

**********

And my favorite three, because they answer my biggest question about fear – how do we confront and overcome fear?

When fear comes knocking at your door, send faith to answer.  Joyce Meyer

Let your faith be bigger than your fear.

And my very favorite?

As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t watch many videos for entertainment.  I find it really hard to find movies that I deeply enjoy and find valuable.

Last night I happened on such a wonderful movie that I had to share it with you!  Front of the Class is the true story of a young man with Tourettes syndrome, who is determined to be the kind of teacher he never had.  To watch how this man never gave up in the face of this unending challenge and refused to let the Tourettes determine his quality of life was very, very inspiring and very moving.

My husband watched it with me and we were getting teary eyed at the same parts.  🙂 This movie was simply beautiful, extremely well acted and very moving.   It leaves you with a powerful message to believe in yourself and never give up no matter how hard things are.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I did!  If you watch it I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Avivah