Blindsided

I have numerous posts waiting to be written out. I have rough draft entries for a couple of the challenges I like to follow and sometimes take part in; as well as several new challenges I'd like to start participating in; all the deadlines for my entries have passed, so they will continue to sit in my WIPs folder.  Tonight, I mentally drafted a post about how I like to instigate drama, and just sat down to type it out for you.  But, for now, for tonight at least, that post has been back-burnered.

Every time I log in to blogger, (a couple times a day 'cause I like to check my non-existent stats) I try to catch up on new posts in my reading list. Tonight, there was a post by a woman who is days away from delivering her second child. The post started out as a touching reflection on her first child's growing acceptance of his role as a big brother. Reading that brought a bit of dampness to my eyes. Then her post linked to a man's blog about being his wife's caregiver, as she is slowly succumbing to cancer. A brief look at his blog increased the moisture in my eyes, but I managed to move on without actually shedding a tear.  She finished off her post by offering to pray for anyone that had prayer requests; she has a list of people she will pray for while delivering her new baby.  She is an American Muslim, and according to her blog, there are people in her faith who believe that the prayers sent up by a woman delivering a child are especially important.  For a moment, I considered emailing her and asking for her prayer. And suddenly the floodgates opened.

It could be my own wavering faith in God. It could be my wavering faith in miracles. In invisible cures.  It could be my own denial--we need modern medicine to force the cancer into remission, if I ask for anything more than a general prayer am I admitting to myself, and to whomever, that maybe we do need more than medicine to save my sister?  That scares me. Or maybe it was that this woman truly believes in the miracle of life, and believes that her prayers may make a difference. I know any and all prayers can make a difference. But reading her words made me believe that her prayers truly would make a difference. That immense hope was immediately crushed by the fear that her prayers won't work.

Maybe all of these things were at work in that small instant when I thought about asking to her to add me to her prayer list.  Whatever the reason, I was certainly not expecting the enormous wave of emotions, or the quiet tears, when I innocently opened my dashboard. 

Now that I've pretty much recovered for the moment, I'm going to bed. I'll be back later this week with my instigator post. 

Goodnight :)