A Spirit of Power

I'm so hungry and all I want is a coffee, but I can't cause today is the day.  In a couple hours I'll be at the hospital for what should be a regular procedure and then back home in a few hours.  I'm not super happy about it.  Apparently my blood pressure even says so.

When I went in for the pre-op the nurse took my blood pressure and told me it was "dangerously high".  I wasn't the slightest bit surprised.  I had driven into the hospital parking lot angry, walked into the hospital entrance doors angry, literally muttering under my breath, "I don't want to be here.  I shouldn't have to be here."  So, no doubt, my blood pressure was high!  My body was just listening to what I was telling it!  BE ANGRY!  I told the nurse just that, "I've had 8 pregnancies and never once did I have high blood pressure.  I'm just mad and my body knows it."  So there!  She laughed and took the next half hour to calm me down.  Sure enough, the next reading was better.

I don't necessarily need to be so angry.  I guess I feel like it is an unnecessary procedure.  I'm almost afraid this will taint my perfect record of never having any surgery, but they say the doctors don't make this decision lightly (I half-believe them).  Is it because deep down I'm perhaps a little afraid?  Maybe.  But in my life, this is just a real inconvenience. My husband has to take a day off work.  My kids "miss school" which actually does matter to a homeschool mom who tries to keep her kids on track to some degree.  I just don't have time to be down and out.  What about the laundry?  One day of laundry gone is a pretty big deal in my house.  Ah, so what.  It'll be over soon.  This too shall pass they say.  It's all about perspective, isn't it?

Any way I look at it, it's a call to trust.  And of course, a good pastor can see into the future (I jest!) and he spoke on not having a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a self-control, which in other versions says, "a strong mind" (2 Tim.1:7).  I kind of like that wording better because it was my mind that made my heart race the other day and it was my mind that calmed it down. 

So I have a choice today to have a spirit of fear or spirit of power.  Not much of a choice really.  Of course I will choose the latter.  My nurse will be mad at me if I don't and then she'll get high blood pressure!