Mary's Lasagna

Hhhhhmmmm, Mary's lasagna! 

Been overdoing the past couple weeks- in part to care for one of our daughters who came down with mono, strep, and on top of that had severe subluxation of her back/neck!  Otherwise, there were extra doctor visits, meetings...and, the fall garden produce push. 

I am thankful to be able at this point to participate in any of these activities- but I feel the 'teetering' each day of my body, and I don't have much margin built up in my immunity.  My mind says- plow forward, but my body says rest; more importantly, my gut tells me STOP-REST!  So, I am leaving the stack of things sit for now- and thought I'd spend a few moments with you~

Ok- back to Mary's lasagna (ha, with brain fog, you thought I'd forgotten what I started writing about, or did you forget? :) )

Over the course of the most intense months of treatments/reactions- Mary, from our Church Family, began to make our family a pan of lasagna.  Which, by the way, my family has declared to be The Best Lasagna ever!  She always includes a sweet treat along with the meal as well. 

It has been a wonderful blessing to have had one of Mary's Lasagna show up in timely fashion; just-the-day when making a good meal would've been 'too much', or to have a pan of her lasagna tucked in the freezer to go to when I needed the cooking break. 

Mary's Lasagna not only fed my family deliciously, but it also allowed me to save energy that I could now spend sitting with my family at the table, or resting , or getting at some other duty... 

Anytime Mary would get a clean pan back- it wouldn't be long and one full of lasagna would lovingly return to us.  This went on for months!  Once I was up to regularly preparing meals to a decent degree- I told her thank you again, and asked for her recipe.  She told me she'd rather not give me the recipe- because then I'd be compelled to make the lasagna, and she believed I wasn't that well yet  :) 

But, with my being able to do 'more' the lasagnas did slow- as I didn't have to pull them out of the freezer as often. 

As I said, the past few week's challenges have been just a tad more than my reserve- Mary had heard about the challenges of late, and here came a dish of her lasagna- much to the great delight of us all! It didn't even get into the freezer- it went  right to the table!  Timing was perfect!  What a blessing! 

(For those of you wondering if I'm following my 'Lyme diet'- no, I can't eat lasagna.  But I just make myself something to eat  that is easy.  Which is fine- because I'm not cooking a big meal- and can just sit with my family and enjoy being together.)

Mary still won't give me her recipe- but she is such a blessing!  Not only that she shares her talents in lasagna with us, but most of all- even after all this time in treatment, she is still 'tuned in' to our situation...she is faithful.  The biggest blessing~ 

Throughout this illness/treatment... I have camped out a lot in the Psalms.  This past week I've been lingering in the 111-117 Psalms.  Today I read in Psalm 116 "I love the LORD because he hears my voice and my prayer for mercy.  Because he bend down to listen, I will pray as long as I have breath! (vs1-2)   and Psalm 115 vs 1 "Not to us O LORD, not to us, but to your name goes all the glory for your unfailing love and faithfulness."

It is such a comfort to know that the LORD hears my voice- in fact- He bends down to listen to me! My God cares!  I may not always feel like He hears/cares...but He is at work nonetheless- 

Before being diagnosed with Lyme- at one point, I almost died from being struck with the Norwalk virus and a precipitous Thyroid Storm-  The hospital was so full of sick patients for the mini-pandemic- the staff was very busy.  The next day after being admitted, I was feeling well enough to have had a lot of  questions formulate in my mind- I wanted to ask the doctor about them, but hadn't had one visit me since the ER doctor admitted me well over 24hrs ago~

I waited.  And waited... later that afternoon I asked my attendant again if I could talk to the doctor!  Finally, much later- a doctor came in.  I got to ask my questions-  and found out that at this hospital, there was a doctor out at the 'nurses station' 24/7.  He's been closely monitoring my situation/watching my telemetry....  I hadn't seen him, but he was there watching me, giving orders to those attending to me... 

This struck me, it is a bit like when we call out to the LORD- we may not always get to 'see Him', or hear back from Him in ways we'd like, or as quickly as we'd like...but we can be sure that He hears us, He sees us, He is taking care of us, He sends His servants to minister  us... He has the (very) big picture in view of what we truly need, and what those around us (truly) need- and how all these inter- mesh, even dimensionally....things well beyond my comprehension; I must rest in knowing He is God! 

Verses like Psalm 115 vs 1 sum it up- Not to us O LORD, not to us, but to your name goes all the glory for you unfailing love and faithfulness."

And sometimes He chooses to show His unfailing love and faithfulness to me by sending a baking dish full of lasagna, covered by aluminum foil, ready to heat, extended to us by one of His dear, smiling, kind servants- Mary.

Blessings-
cindy