Shampoo is better, no conditioner is better!

It's time for a bath.  My parents physically carry me up the stairs and put me in the tub.  My mom washes me off, and starts shampooing my hair as I am slumped over the side of the tub, oxygen blasting and my eyes barely open. I'm a dead weight, but none the less, my mom's voice stays uplifting as she tells me what beautiful hair I have and how nice it's going to feel to lay on the couch all fresh.  My dad's preparing my clothes and new fresh sheets for the couch, which has become my living space... This was our life.  This became normal to us.

But not anymore.

I recovered. I came home. I was walking. And then I started washing my own hair.  I couldn't believe I had the strength, the energy and the BREATH to do it.. but I did.  I didn't cough, I wasn't tired and I didn't have to stop to catch my breath because it never left. Instead of sitting in the tub hunched over toward the outside, I was outside of the tub, leaning over it, using my new fancy shampoo (thanks Kate Arian!).

Then, after all the staples were out and everything was healed... I could take my first legitimate shower.  I remember stepping in and praying because although I was told I could do this... I was scared.  Flashbacks of how things used to be popped into my head, and as I pulled back the curtain to step under the rushing water, I prayed.  "God.. please make this be ok because it just feels so weird."  Taking a shower felt weird.  I began to slightly panic wondering if my chest was really healed enough to take the water pressure, or if the temperature was ok for my new lungs.. after all, I couldn't breathe in humidity at all before.. then memories of my last showers started flooding my mind... how every shower, even if I felt ok, inevitably led to watching the blood that I coughed up spiral down the drain... 

I stepped in, feeling a little crazy for being so worried over a shower but nonetheless clutching to God.  The water was just right, and as it pounded down on me, God reminded me of those daydreams I clung to on ECMO -- of standing underneath a water fall, feeling each water pellet strike me individually, and yet all at once, drenching me and dripping down my face without ceasing.  And as I stood there, the water not only washed me, but washed away everything I was fretting over, and I was reminded yet again, the GOOD that the Lord has for me.  The "simple" gifts he's given me, like hot water, and my senses to feel it.  He reminded me of how nice it feels to wash my own hair, and use girly scented body washes.. How I forgot the days of turning on the radio louder than I should so I could hear it once I turned the the handle that made the shower head suddenly spurt... I was reminded yet again that it is Jesus who is the Living Water, and how it is Jesus who washes away my sins, and my fears.

And after I finished actually showering, I stood.  I didn't do anything but listen to the water spraying with all its force.. closing my eyes and tipping my head so I could feel the warmth and pressure beat against me and drip down my face, and realize that all the while... I was breathing.

"'For I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD. 'They are plans for good...'" Jeremiah 29:11a

The LORD has GOOD things planned for us, even when our feelings tell us that it's scary, and weird and wrong... If it's leading you to the Living Water, you'll soon discover that waterfall of goodness He's been waiting to flood you with all along.. and I say flood on purpose.. because this is just the beginning.

I'm going to go take a shower because God is love.