I had my own church service tonight since I was stuck here. I participated from 6:30 to 7:30 to keep time with my Echo Church brothers and sisters only a few miles away. I was with you guys in spirit!

It was a nice time. I contemplated the importance of being able to breathe in and out without pain. I recalled when I first heard Steve teach about God's name "Yahweh." We don't know the exact vowels from the Hebrew (we just guess at A and E) because they weren't written. What we do know is that it was supposed to be pronounced as a breathing in and a breathing out. "Yah" breathes in; "weh" breathes out. Try it. Every breath has God's name on it.

I guess that was my "sermon time" in my service tonight. (Good thing I've heard many a sermon by Steve so that something sticks in the memory! :) I love my preacher!) I then listened to some worship tunes on my new iPod Nano that I've yet to blog about but that was given to me by my wonderful husband at just the right time for my hospital visit. It was so uplifting. (I even took a praise walk, jamming down the hall and did a little dance when no one was looking! I felt God surrounding me.)

I also found the Passion Hymns collection and heard new words for the first time. Such as "Take My Life." The song describes different parts of the body and how to offer up those parts for God's use. I decided to add lungs as an addendum to the song tonight. I figure God gave me these breaths in my lungs. He has me right here, right now for a purpose. And each moment in life is there for a purpose. So I should be at peace, no matter the type of moment. If I am tempted to be frustrated in a moment or impatient to move on to the next moment, I hope I remember tonight's worship service and recall that each breath is here for a purpose, and I can choose to use it for God's glory or not.

And it looks like He's got a few more breaths in store for me. Breaths that I can use. Breaths that may take hard work to get through, but breaths that can empower my hands to reach out and my ears to listen and my feet to go and my eyes to see and my mouth to say words that need to be said.

My breaths are with me at work when things seem mundane or even stressful. But my breaths are empowering me to do that work for a reason.

My breaths are with me so I can take notice of strangers or friends who have needs. My breaths can be used to shine out God's love to them, if I remember to use those breaths for that purpose.

My breaths are with me as a mom who is fixing food and changing diapers and picking up toys. And those things may seem unending. But my breaths are there for me to raise Kaelyn for a reason. They are also there to smell the top of her little freshly washed hair before she falls asleep at night.

My breaths are with me as a wife even when I am impatient with my husband because he may not notice where to find things in the house. And as a minister's wife -- when I may need to use my breaths to be patient when others need Steve's time, to clean my house so that we can have people over, to encourage Steve if he is having a rough day. But my breaths are also there to allow me to stand by his side and hold his hand and see the church that God has built and know that I get to be a part of it!

My breaths are not just for me but for every person God has placed in my life, in my path, in my moments.

My breaths are for God -- created by Him, loaned to me, designed to praise Him.

Yah - weh.

Yikes! What a title for a post. But it's true -- here I sit, in the hospital, with them trying to pump up my little lung back to full strength. (Remember those pump tennis shoes? Perhaps they'll try that technique!) I am currently on percocet (I just learned how to spell that!), so if I start to ramble and not make sense, it's the drugs talking!

How did this all happen, you wonder? No one knows. Apparently lungs can collapse without any rhyme or reason. Lucky for me! They call it "spontaneous pneumothorax." In other words, "your breathing apparatus decided to just poop out on you for no good reason." That's my translation, anyway.

Good news: they caught it in time to do something about it; it was 30% collapsed so MOST of my left lung was still functioning!
Bad news: I now have a chest tube stuck in my side to alleviate the air pocket that caused the collapse, and I have to be in the hospital for 5 days.

So here's the recap:
I woke up at 4 a.m. with a pain shooting from my back to my chest in the rib cage area. When I moved certain ways, pain would shoot. It felt kind of like an intense version of a sore muscle when you have slept on your side wrong. So I thought I just had a really bad sleeping position. Then at 7 am my alarm went off for work. I got out of bed and felt the same shooting pains. I thought a hot shower might help relax muscles. No such luck.

I wasn't going to go to work. But I took some Advil, and it settled the pain to a mere dull consistency. I figured I'd go into work to pick up some files I needed and not stay long. (Never say I'm not dedicated, hard-working, and stubborn!) So I did. But then the pain increased so I left after lunch and stopped by my doctor.

She thought it was either a really bad muscle thing or possibly a blood clot. Whoah! So she sent me right away to have a CT scan. The people at the Pro-Scan Imaging place were so amazing. The man and woman who did the test were so encouraging and caring. God-sent!

So they inject me with this iodine and send me through a donut-type shaped thing that scans the needed area. The iodine shot warmth through my body. Weird sensation. They read the results, saw the "moderate" sized collapse and sent me to Christ Hospital emergency room.

Meanwhile, Steve got a hold of Sheryl who left work to watch Kaelyn for us while he met me at the ER. The pulmonary doc came in and told me all about my lung and how air had somehow gotten between the lung and the lining, pressing down on the lung itself. So he'd have to knock me out, insert a tube in my chest, and leave it there for 5 days while everything clears up.

He said some people have this happen more than once in life. Not anything I look forward to. But since it was spontaneous, there's nothing I can do to prevent it. He said just don't go scuba diving or fly any planes. OK. Check. But he is also restricting my lifting for a month, so this will be interesting with a toddler and her needing to be lifted out of a crib and carried places. Go, Steve, go! :)

I'd appreciate your prayers and any notes you want to email me! Steve too. I think he and Kaelyn might miss me! At least we live close by, so they can run over to visit easily. I'd better get some shut-eye now.

At times, if I allow myself the time for cognitive reflection, I can tap into the intelligent side of my brain and bring forth profound thought and multifaceted vocabulary to express my visceral personality. The writing produced by such thought emerges from an unknown location and presents itself on the page. In reading through past meanderings as these, I find myself surprised that I was the author and hardly recall the entire construction process.

And, at other times, my brain is simply muddle. A puddle.

And then there are times when I feel I can’t focus on a thing! Barely comprehending one thought, my attention is yanked away to some distraction. And I get mad at myself for not being able to remember why I walked from one room to another.

Such is life, I guess. And while I desire depth in both my daily thought processes and my weekly postings here on the blog, sometimes life isn’t like that. Or depth comes in simple language and simple events, which is just fine. The only negative is that it can be hard on the pride and ego -- if I’m a writer and editor, I tell myself that I should be more eloquent more often. I have the potential, at least!

My desire for my life is to encourage others with my words. However that comes, in large words and large thoughts or in simple musings, I hope that you might find something I say ends up causing you to smile, to think, to praise God. After all, the ability to write comes from God, intended to give the glory back to Him!