Episode 11: Cheering Squad

"... we understand ... Abel ... Enoch ... Noah ... Abraham ... Isaac ... Jacob ... Joseph ... Moses ... Jericho ... Rahab ... And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel ... Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, ...  let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us." (Hebrews) This passage was on my mind last week and it seemed rather relevant.

One of the interesting features of blogger.com is that it provides statistics, nothing terribly detailed, just some basics. For example, it tells me how many pageviews (besides my own) my episodes have had and from what countries. There are pageviews from Canada, the U.S., Germany, South Korea and the Ukraine. If I could take a globe and put a tack on each location would it look like a cheering squad around the world or a cloud of witnesses perhaps? I picture someone running a marathon and having spectators at the side cheering them on.

I have a dear friend who said, "Next time you are tempted to imagine that your "story is getting old", try to remember this: reading your blogs allows me to feel a tiny bit like I am walking this path by your side. Please let me do that." I can't even remember birthdays. Why would anyone want to be part of this? And yet, I am so grateful. I think about my cheering squad constantly. Everyday I check my stats and it's like, "Oh, look, someone's thinking about me!" My cousin said, "Just so you know, you are an inspiration to many and a source of strength." How is this possible? And, just for the record, the  people in my cheering squad have been through way harder things than I'll ever know. They're teaching me, not the other way around.

Last night, I did some self-pitying simply because I can't imagine why people would give up their time just to tend to me:
- My daughter who helps me change my undies
- My husband who cringes every time I wince
- My other daughter who rubs my feet. (Poor thing. That wasn't even necessary. I just felt like getting a foot rub.)
- My third "daughter" who hardly even knows me but carries out my dishes
- The nurses who do all the really nasty stuff that make me pass out
- My sister who booked her plane ticket right away
- My sister-in-law who's taking her first weekend off to drive up and take care of me
- And so many others who through words or actions encourage and help; I am so so humbled.

A couple of years ago, I (with my family) went up north to teach at a very difficult school. I was ill-prepared for the stress and the animosity. One of the local teachers said to me, "The only way you're going to survive up here is if you stick up for yourself. No one else is going to do it for you." He was right. I grew a backbone and I survived (one year, barely). Now, less than two years later, I'm flat on my back completely dependent on the beneficence of others. What exactly is the lesson here? Could the lesson be that regardless of what life throws at us (and trust me, these are races that I did not choose) we will survive? Our lives are so much bigger and more eternal than we can imagine. From the time of Abel, we have a cloud of witnesses cheering us on, regardless of the race we've been given.