Postcards from Paradise - The Healing Heat of Joy

Sometimes we see pictures, hear a song, see something of exquisite beauty and we find ourselves just glowing with joy.  I was feeling especially happy this morning when I happened to run across these two images in my Facebook feed.  The pure JOY was so infectious, I HAD to put them together.

So, why the joy?  Well, to get to that, I have to tell a story.

Yesterday evening was unsettling and these two images were object reminders of faith at work and confirmed.  Don, reformed ornery man (ROM) at times, has reached a state of wisdom where he does not mess around and ignore the state of his body.  Our daughter, Krista, would no doubt disagree with him, but like I would say to her - "There is always room for improvement".

Don, hence for, in this post, to be called ROM, was not feeling well yesterday.  It all started at 8:30 a.m.  Naturally, ROM continued with his plans for the day and finished off some heavy yard work  cleanup after the yardmen did the heavy lifting and transplanting of some bushes from the back to the front.  By 10 a.m., he was looking a little grey.

ROM cleaned up and then laid down to take a nap.  I, in the meanwhile, settled in to watch some episodes of "Rosemary and Thyme" on my laptop (thank you, YouTube) and the day gently moved into quiet mode.  Later, after he woke up, I laid down.  Somewhere in the midst of all of that, I was aware of a couple of things - ROM was vomiting in the bathroom and the dogs, particularly Delly, would not leave me to my rest, but with increasing frequency, jumped up to nose my cheek and lick me.  Tanner joined in from time to time.  By this time, it was 4:30 ish and I gave up trying to get a nap.  Of course, as it turns out I DID get a nap, time HAD gone by and the dogs had finally gotten through to me.

ROM was still pretty grey, if not more so, and he could not stand up straight.  Sitting, he was dizzy.  Laying, the pain became worse.  One more wave of nausea and he was breathily telling me to call 911.  Something wasn't right.  My brain went into frozen mode but finally I figured out that to call 911, I had to actually pick up the phone, not just walk back and forth.

The short story is that ROM had a hernia, a big ol' grapefruit size hernia.  The doctor worked his magic, the pain subsided, and next week we see Dr. Bailey (who did his appendectomy 4 years ago) and arrange for surgery to fix that bad boy.  And, about those pictures; that joy.  Those two pictures totally embody how I was feeling last night with the diagnosis and the temporary fix.  And with that, the brain freeze I was experiencing quickly melted away.  There is nothing like the heat of joy to heal fear.