Last night I literally fell into bed so exhausted after only two short days, but I think mental or emotional stress is more tiring than a day of physical activity. Looking forward to my day off helped me make it through those two days, and I know that looking forward to the weekend will help me survive the next two days. So far I haven't used my day off as productively as I had hoped, and yet I have been productive in "just being." Since that's my whole purpose in finding myself again, I imagine that can be called productive.
I woke up early, made pancakes, and I spent a good while visiting with God, as I do each morning. We always have breakfast together, so I don't feel so alone. But only after a couple hours of studying the word, catching up on my studies, I felt drained, so I laid back down, and I woke up around 3 pm.
It's so quiet here when the whole world is closed off from me, and I am able to think and write from my heart. When I decided to write each day this year about "gratitude," sharing something from the day on which to focus the blog, I didn't realize how challenging writing, something I dearly love, would become. I decided to blog daily not only to thank God for His incredible gift of life, mercy, love, but to discipline myself to write my book and publish when I retire. Again, the concept of retirement is a difficult thought for me to grasp. I think freedom from constraints faced daily is a more adequate truth in what I consider retirement.
There's so much more of life I want to experience, more I want to do to fulfill the life calling I have to encourage others in the trials of daily life. I'm tired of meeting self-imposed deadlines or those which cripple my creative abilities. I am particularly tired of playing cat and mice in a job that offers no peace. You wonder why I keep at it then, right? It's because I am making a difference, even if it's only in one life, and I can never turn my back on even one person in need.
Sometimes I feel so desperately alone. I see helplessness and hopelessness on so many faces, and although there are people who can give relief or systems that could work, everything is a chaotic set up to failure. I don't understand how leaders of state and government can sleep at night when they even glimpse the struggle of one person much less hundreds, thousands of individuals weighted down by economic or health-related impossibilities. They return to their nice, expensive homes, to a meal prepared by their hired help, tossing away tons of food, while the homeless dig in dumpsters looking for one piece of stale bread or discarded, half-eaten fruit, or putrid meat.
I feel so alone, separated from my family who doesn't understand me, and who never takes the time to ask me how I am doing way over here. I feel forgotten when I am the one who has to make all the efforts to keep in touch. I am so tired of those who focus their attention only on themselves, not caring to listen to a lonely, crippled heart and mind trying desperately to know someone cares. There have been times when I have dared to risk the judgment of another in exposing my in depth feelings of emptiness and the confusion that tries to rule my soul, only to receive reproach, guilt, and condemnation. To quote Brennan Manning "Something is radically wrong!"
By now you're thinking I must be depressed, but although I visit depression now and then, it is never my place of mental residence. I can never separate myself from the love I feel from my Savior. His love is indelibly etched on my heart. He's been with me all my life, and He understands these dark nights of the soul, listening for His voice, reassuring me I am on His path, and carrying me through some pretty dismal times of introspection and wondering.
That's why I like to absorb myself in the works of adored men and women of faith who have lived lives of quiet desperation and overcome. While you may not understand this "place," don't fret yourselves into thinking of it critically, because these are times I need to strengthen my resolve in trusting God. I know He's here with me, He never leaves, and I can...and do...talk to Him all the time. He's my unseen solace and my constant support. He's my self-confidence builder who boosts my self-esteem. It's not the same with worldly praise. It is so...much...more! Greater, even. Unless you've had this relationship of "sitting in His lap" I doubt you can understand the contradictory statements I "appear" to be making when I speak of feeling alone. No worries, my friend, He has it all under control, and I'm just sharing my thoughts.
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