There must be darkness to appreciate the light.

It's been a long winter. I can barely remember the sunshine and the green grass, and every day seems to blend into a hazy gray snow bank drizzled in dog pee. I am still recovering from surgery, and feeling even more trapped because of it I am sure.
Every day that is above freezing, I open the widows just a crack to feel that wonderful fresh stream of air that smells crisp and clean. I'm sure I'll regret it when we get the natural gas bill, but those few minutes of sanity are worth it.
I am slowly trying to find value in myself again. I have realized that for many years, I have found my value in that little slip of paper with my name and a dollar value on it, yep, my pay check. Since I was a mom and wife first, and an employee second, I wasn't worth much most of the time. But I had my "own" money, I had a little financial freedom, I didn't have to talk to my husband about every penny spent and balancing joint accounts, and I liked it. This surgical recover, this winter of my life, has had so many lessons, and a big one for me is that my value is not determined by my paycheck. My value is in my children's smiles, it is in the dog that curls up at my feet at night no matter how many times I accidentally kick her. My worth is in my husbands lop sided grin when I say something dumb when we are out on our "date night". My value is enumerated each time I smile at a stranger, or put a dollar in the collection jar for the animal shelter. When I hold the door for the elderly man, or help the woman at the grocery store pick up everything that has fallen from her diaper bag, I am infinitely human and eternally valued on a scale that really means something.
My credit score sucks right now. I am not positive what it is, I even went to one of those "free credit report" sites to try and find out, to face my fear, and it said my score wasn't available. Maybe because it is currently lower then dirt, or maybe the site was just having problems, I am opting for the first. I wish it were different, but I'm gonna just have to be ok with it for right now, because I have a medical debt of around $75,000 right now and it's gonna only go up before it goes down. I need to remember that this life is short, and my credit score certainly won't follow me into the afterlife, God forbid I hope it doesn't! But there is something much more important that will. Who am I to the stranger? Who am I to those that have hurt me? Who do I want to become and how will I get there? Those are the things I want to focus on.....I can change my phone number so the bill collectors will have a harder time bothering me for now, but God's got my permanent number, and I need to change the things I can for his purpose so I can find that value I have been seeking. When will I learn to trust Him?