I Can Do That Sometimes

This is a poem for when we have to utter one of the most dreaded of all sentences: "Mama can't play with you right now, I'm feeling sick." Or worse yet, for when we have to try to sing a lullaby over the hospital phone with a lump in our throats and then try to go to sleep all alone in that awful hospital bed that reinflates noisily every single time you move... Nothing is emptier than a night in the hospital away from your kids, or in my case five nights because for some reason that's my lucky number. But I digress in my self pity. Here's the poem, "I Can Do That Sometimes."

I CAN DO THAT SOMETIMES

by Megan Smith

Some Moms can run and play with their children everyday.
I can do that sometimes.

Some Moms are home each night to tuck their kids in bed tight.
I can do that sometimes.

Some Moms bake cookies, play, and make dinner each and every day.
I can do that sometimes.

Some Moms go on long vacations and drive for hours to far off locations,
I can do that sometimes.

Some Moms can take their kids to the park and have a picnic until it gets dark,
I can do that sometimes.

Even though you might wail, some Moms can go to church each week without fail,
I can make it sometimes.

Some Moms don't have weekly doctor appoints to make or piles of medication to take,
but I do sometimes.

Some Moms never have to sleep in a hospital bed when they'd rather be with you instead,
but I do sometimes.

I know it hurts you when I can't play, and it hurts me too,
but sometimes I get very sick. It's not something that I picked.
It's something God gave me to help me learn how Jesus saved me.

So even though I can't always be the Mom I want to be,
I will always be your Mom and you will always be my Baby
no matter how sick I might get: on that, both our hearts can rest.

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When you are stuck in that cold hospital bed, take out that Gideon's Psalms and New Testament Bible and turn to Psalm 40. It saved my (spiritual) life one night long, long ago after a horrible reaction to terrible medication. God will always provide a way out of the darkness (Psalm 46; 1 Cor. 10:13; Isaiah 43; John 16:25-33).

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