Wow. So I am standing on the 'Brink of Total Despair' today and I read this article. I know there are many who wonder what in the world is wrong with me. I am sure that an answer like, "Oh, my very best friend that I have known since I was born just got hit by a giant freakish dragonfly and won't be around much longer.", would actually make sense. The real answer is a bit boring actually. The real reason I have been on the verge of drowning for the past year is all about having a baby.Okay okay. Settle down. Yes, I know women have babies all the time. I know that in Utah you know at least, oh, enough women to fill a Walmart parking lot on a Saturday night that are pregnant and enough to fill another with the ones that just had babies. Ya, I know, my story isn't original, and I like original. Oh Well.
So, I am reading this article and it lifts me up enough to get my shoes on and go for a walk. I pretty much stalk out of my house with quite a little attitude. By the time I am walking back home I am slightly sweaty, slightly pink, and slightly happy. Happy is a miracle. Even slightly.
Sometimes a walk feels impossible. It feels like there is absolutely no way I can stand up and walk out the door. There may as well be an iron grate covering my front door with heavy lock on it, and I don't have the key.
So, here is a part of what I read today: "At one moment, we are filled with the Spirit, we see the grand horizon, we tearfully promise God that we will give all we have and are to him. Yet, there is often a slow, grinding down in our lives. What we feel in the morning has been pounded out of us by the afternoon. What we resolve on Sunday, we forget on Tuesday. The world is too much with us. We are weary. Sometimes our hope is dimmed. The thing we wanted very most, is the thing we don’t receive. The effort, which cost us much and at one time seemed to promise so much, ends in failure. The child of our hopes and dreams disappoints us or rejects our teachings.
We can be true and hopeful when prayers are answered and the crops come in, but what about when we kneel in need and seem to hear only the echo of our own voice?
Sometimes in our life we face trials, clearly identified and difficult--death, sickness, financial reversal, the abuse of a family member. But, often just as trying, is the long, tedious, wearing down of every day. The job that needs to be constantly redone. The relentless undoing of our dreams. All the things that work away at us may dim our intentions. We mean to be steady, like a river, and instead we dry up under pressure like a river in Arabia.
Many moments of our life we may just feel dead inside, dead like autumn leaves that blow randomly along a gutter. We cry out to the Lord, “Breathe life into me.”
Many moments of our life we may just feel dead inside, dead like autumn leaves that blow randomly along a gutter. We cry out to the Lord, “Breathe life into me.”
Oh baby. Sometimes God gives me the key to that iron grate I have in my head. Sometimes he unlocks something for me so I can make it one more day. Grace is what I wanted. Grace is what I still need to learn. So I say, along with those parking lots full of women, "Carry on my sisters. One more day."
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3 comments:
That is so true. The big tests are so much easier to handle than the day to day grind. Getting enough oil in your lamp to last the day is the hard part. Thanks for sharing that article. Perhaps today I will try a bit harder.
Oh Misty. I SO hear you. Thank you for the pep talk. I have lived in that iron cage for years and years.....lets see......Brennan is almost 15? :o)
I'm glad you were able to take that walk.
There have been so many times where I feel like I'm down in the trenches and it is pouring rain. Really really hard and I am trying to keep the mud from sliding down into the trench. I am so weary I can't even lift my head to see the rainbow or the blue skies on the horizon.
I've learned a lot this summer. I have learned that Heavenly Father is very aware of us. He is aware of our hopes and dreams and desires. The things that we can never get to because we are too tired. The things we WANT to do but either we're too tired to do them by the time we can get to them or they just don't happen because our family and responsibilities come first.
I'm learning about the atonement in ways that I'd not understood about before. I know about the atonement. I know it exsists. I know it covers everything but in the past I didn't "know" the comfort. Before it was always, "ya but....". This summer I have learned to be at peace. All those years I spent on the couch because I was pregnant and sick....all those years I've spent on the couch because of post partum.....this summmer that I've spent on the couch because of illness.......all of the projects I've wanted to do. The hobbies, the books I want to read, the races I want to run....the list goes on.
In the past I knew that I'd be compensated but but but....it hurt "now" that I wasn't/aren't able to do those things.
All is well. All is well. Our time here is but a short moment and then we have eternity to run races, read books, do crafts, ride horses, etc. etc. etc. All is well.
We're not "missing out" because we chose to be righteous and have children. I think that is how I have felt in the past. Yes....I had children.....yes.....I'm trying to be righteous and choose the right.......but man look at the sacrifice! Look what I've had to give up.
I don't feel that way anymore. I know that there will be many trenches that I'll be in while here on earth but hopefully I'll remember the lessons I've learned this summer and remember to raise my head every once in awhile and look for the rainbows and the blue skies on the horizon.
Okay, that was a long response to your post. Sorry. :o)
Hang in there girl. I think you're wonderful. I think you are doing an incredible job being a mommy. Know that I love you, admire you, and am down in the trenches with you. We'll slog mud together. :o)
I am thinking about this. I know these feelings, too. There were years when the Christmas decorations sat in boxes piled all over the bedroom upstairs until the next Christmas, and I had to pull myself up the stairs one at a time, holding on to the rail as if I were an old woman.
It comes and goes over the years. The next year, I was alive again, and I managed. You will manage and you will be happy, and you will feel open to the air once again. I promise.
You are a mighty, magical girl - you have grit, you have joy as a gift inside of you. You have pushed your limits, and now you'll have to regroup, it's true. But in the end, it will be worth it, as it is worth it now, to me, sitting here across the street on my couch, listening to the crickets sing out summer, thinking of the voices that used to fill this house, my heart and all my time.
You will, because you are. That sounds empty and smacks of platitude, but I mean it. I'll explain it on the sidewalk if you need me to.
Hold fast.
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