Pushing on

Where do we as human's get the strength and power to push on, even when all we want to do is quit?  I thought about this a lot today.  I wanted to sleep, my body demanded rest to heal the sickness that has overtaken me, but no, it is Easter.  The one day of the year that Christians hold on to, it is kind of the reason we believe what we believe.  Jesus raised from the dead, the premise behind all that we hold as true.
So I drug my body out of bed
cleaned the house because the in-laws would be coming over after church
Made special breakfast because we always have a special breakfast on Easter
Gathered all the supplies for church
Put on my best Easter dress ( is it my imagination or is it a little snug through the hips? I will focus on that later)
Smiled and greeted everyone in their best Easter clothes
Explained for the millionth time that I was sick and didn't have a voice (sympathetic looks)
Ran children's church
Comforted a crying toddler
Directed families down the hall to the complimentary family photo
Directed children to the Easter Egg Hunt
Cleaned the church after everyone was gone
Came home and let the in-laws in the house while my husband went to preach at another Easter service
Did the left over dishes from yesterday so the kitchen was clean
Baby-sat the 3 new babies in the family while moms went to get food for bar-b-que
Directed people to necessary things in my house
Finally my husband came home and I excused myself to go rest a bit.

4 hours later I emerged.  Somehow my body knew it must push on, it stored up all of the energy it had and used it to get through the day.  I believe this is a decidedly human trait.  If an animal is sick, it crawls into a corner or safe spot and hunkers down until it is better, coming out only to eat or find leaves, roots or seeds that it can use as medicine.   Why do humans have to fight that natural instinct to hunker down and rest.  Pushing aside their bodies instincts, ignoring what has proven to make us better in the past.  Simply refusing to give in to the illness.  Why?  You don't see a cheetah that is infected with a parasite just get up and say to its mate, I can power through this, I will simply ignore it and it will go away.  NO, they listen to their bodies, follow their instincts and heal quickly.

I would like to take a lesson from the animal kingdom and hunker down, listen to my body and do what I know will make it better, but instead I will lay around what is left of today and then get up and go to work this week, run myself out of energy and this sickness will linger into next weekend.  Pushing on seems to be the human way.  Pushing our bodies to the brink of what they can handle and wearing the aches, pains and scars of it with pride.