What's on my heart

This was written last week:

I cried tonight. Really hard.
     It was one of those realization moments that I find happen less and less the older I get and I worry that my teachability isn't what it once was. Those moments are so beautiful and I cherish them not because of their beauty but because of what God shows me is in my heart.
     Tonight, I was getting my tools and supplies together to work on my little bathroom project. Mike wasn't home and I'm tired of music lately so I had the idea to look up a preaching podcast. I'd never done this before and really only wanted to just to pass the time faster. I went on iTunes and typed in Francis Chan, went to "podcasts", and without reading titles or anything quickly hit play on the first one on the list "The Joy of Suffering".
     I was right about the time passing, it flew. He's an amazing speaker. Anyway, this podcast was on suffering and how we rely on God so much through tough times. He talked about being comfortable and how we really don't need God when we're comfortable. I really can't sum it up in a few sentences, it was powerful. So powerful that I cried really hard.
     Probably about five months ago, I began really desiring God. Not in a "I want to go read my Bible" type of way, but in a deep, close,  and personal communion.
     I've thought back hundreds of times to when I had this type of relationship with God. It was amazing, so hard, and yet so incredibly powerful. It was also at a really low point in my life. I was engaged to be married with wedding plans being made and suddenly it was over. Just like that it was done. It was a funny feeling, being so alone. I remember that's what scared me the most: the thought that I could be alone for the rest of my life. It wasn't my heart hurting for that guy that I was engaged to, but the reality that I now had no one.
     Those next few months were painful. I remember laying on my bed just sobbing and crying out to God. Telling him that I felt alone but I knew He was with me. It was so intense, the closeness that I had God.
     I crave it, to this day. Not by any means the hardship, but the love I had for Him. So I began praying for it. I wasn't praying for the hardship, just the closeness. But like Francis Chan talked about in that podcast, those two things go together.
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     Mid-January, I had a doctor appointment for my ankle. It's been years that I've dealt with the pain, but I always told myself that it'd get better or eventually go away. To make a long and boring story short, I need surgery to repair it and to stop the arthritis that's already there. Uggghhhh.
     I've struggled with this for a while. It's a hard recover and will be six weeks of not even putting my foot on the ground (so the doctor says). Project person and lover of independence that I am, this is a low blow. Mike says it has to be done, to be healthy and to hopefully have more children.
It's small in the big picture, very small, very trite. But it's big in my little picture right now. I've lost ten pounds in 26 days (but that could be quitting nursing Micah too) just thinking about how this will affect my family and me.
     I'm embarrassed to keep writing about it as some people have real problems and serious problems, and it's so selfish of me. But here's where my realization came in tonight. I will be in a hardship, I will need God, and that is what I prayed for.
     I don't usually get this personal on here, but I want my kids to know that their mom sought God. Not just went to church, prayed, and went through the motions, but flat out just love Jesus. I hope that they know by the fruit of my life, and if they don't...well, I think then I've failed at my job of being the mother God wanted me to be.