He must be feeling better, but I'm not

This very first week back at work Stephen has done remarkably well. I have actually been surprised that he is keeping up as well as he is. I thought he would go into work for a couple of hours and come home exhausted and fall asleep in his chair for the rest of the day. However, that has not been the case. Monday was a very very busy day as he met with the Finance committee most of the morning to determine how we were going to hold costs down and cut the budget to reflect a 0% increase. He went for coffee with a pastor friend that needed to talk. Steve also went to the Pastor Parish Relations committee meeting that night.

Tuesday was spent filling out paperwork for Rehab at Howard Hospital. (It looks like they want Steve to participate in rehabilitation on Monday, Wed and Fri for 6-8 weeks.) He continued to work on finances and to top of the evening we went out to eat with some friends.

Wednesday Steve met with the Pastors in the Kokomo cluster group and spent many, many hours (at least 6) working on balancing/cutting the budget until he was satisfied with the bottom line.

Today he spent working on his sermon for this coming Sunday. Yes, that is right, Steve is preaching this week. I wonder how he is going to do getting behind the pulpit after such an ordeal in his life. I can only imagine that he will look out over his congregation and begin weeping - for joy of being alive - for joy of still being useful for the Lord - and for joy of the overwhelming gratitude of all the prayers/support he has felt from this body of Christ.

I do have to admit that allowing Steve to get back into the swing of things has not been as easy for me as it has been for Steve. I struggle with the fact that Dr Coffey said that Steve could do whatever he feels like doing. Perhaps my stress is related more to the fact that I am not ready for him to go back to work so fast. Perhaps I am still "mothering" him or something. Perhaps my heart still fears that he will have another heart attack and I will loose him. I cannot set him free so quickly. I still want him to rest. I still want him to be home stress-free.

I am insisting that Steve take tomorrow off completely of which he has agreed to comply. I think we will sleep in late and wrap Christmas presents!

PS: I just read this post to Steve and he said "wow, it sounds like I'm doing better than I feel!" Ha.