Sweet and Sour

Ten days ago I posted about gratitude, and me being so grateful to still have my mom around. A 75 year old that is as fit as a fiddle! No ailments what so ever.

Friday night my sister tried to get hold of me, but my cell phone for some reason did not ring. She asked her daughter to text my daughter that I should phone her urgently, there is an emergency! The first thing that came to mind was something happened to my mom, my sister will not phone me if she has an emergency because I am 700km away from her and will not be able to do anything immediately. So, it had to be something about my mom or brother. But if it is something about my brother, then my mom would have called me. That’s it, it must be about my mom, the absolute dreaded phone call. One that I definitely don’t want and I think will never ever be prepared to receive. My heart was racing, expecting to hear a distressed voice on the other side. When my sister answered, she sounded quite normal and I immediately thought, OK, there is no emergency. My daughter, a bit of a drama queen, maybe just misunderstood the message from her cousin. But, unfortunately, it was bad news. My mom is in hospital. They initially thought she had a heart attack, but by the looks of it, it was not. They ran all sorts of tests and we will only know by Monday what the outcome was, and what is really wrong with her.

The sweet with the sour, the sweet, my mom is OK and the sour, there might be an underlying problem and now her fit as a fiddle health status, might have changed to a true 75 year old person with maybe heart problems?  But, it is the way we deal with the sweet and sour in our lives. I choose to look up and still thank God for my blessings and ask God to please guide me and assist me to deal with the sour bits.

And so, on Saturday morning in between house work, I decided to quickly read one or two  blogs that I follow and both authors, Brenda from Bamboo Heart and Ellie Lash from Ellie Lash Designs were sharing their sweet and sour  moments. Brenda about her husband’s promotion, the sweet, but the sour, they will have to relocate to another province. And Ellie, her husband was unemployed for some time, the sour, and then the sweet; he changed his career and is now employed as a long distance truck driver, yet a bit of sour for pour Ellie, as he will be away from home for long periods.

In conclusion, we all experience the sweet and sour bits of life!!  It is not just sour all the time and it is also not just sweet. We just need to ask for guidance and assistance when we have the sour bits and be thankful for all the sweet bits.

I leave you with a poem about courage – (Scrap Girls e-newsletter)

Courage
We lead out our days in monotonous ways
The humdrum of work and of sleep.
Time slips along, no thrill in the song
Not even a reason to weep.
And then, like a flash, there comes such a crash,
We're stunned by the buffet Fate gives.
In the blackness and blur we feel the soul stir
And that is the moment one lives.
When disaster beats down, the true men are found
And cowards are marked with a brand.
They whimper and whine: they cringe and repine
And the whiplash Fate holds in her hand.
The brave men fight on though the chasm may yawn
And midnight's unlit by a star.
How you face defeat in the crisis you meet
That measures the man that you are.
All through the years there are smiles and tears,
But they, in the end, are the same.
One moment of life in the midst of the strife,
Is worth ages of watching the game.
With dismay in your heart, if you still played your part,
Though bloody and beaten and sore;
If your soul flamed white in the hopeless fight,
The world will ask for no more.
- Anonymous

God Bless!