Tonight I just feel sad, burdened, down trodden. Which didn’t or doesn’t really make a lot of sense. D is here and is staying the nights with J in the hospital; she should be released in a couple days. I am so thankful for this; I am so looking forward to NOT being in that hospital room anymore. But I am not feeling joyful, elated. Why?
I think I am just tired. And I hurt in my heart. I hurt with the pain and am exhausted with the effort that comes from fighting a war that is far from over. I know, I know – one day at a time. And this is truly how I get through these weeks and months, by not looking too far forward. I am SO thankful for how J has been victorious in each battle that she has fought thus far; each phase of treatment. I don’t even feel like I have been focusing on what is still ahead and how long it will take us, but I don’t know how else to explain this weight I am bowing under. I just ache for anything but this. I am tired. I don’t want to do it anymore. I want to feel whole again.
I am fractured. I am torn in two. My heart is here with J and at home in MT with my precious sons and husband. I burn with need to be alongside J and fight with her, give her everything she needs while going through this; and I smolder with desire to be doing what I wanted to do with my life. To be investing myself in person in my marriage, in my son’s lives, in my church, and in the business I built alongside my best friend. I finally have grown to where I just so badly want to involved and a part of what is happening in my church, I am excited for what is occurring there – but behind the excitement lingers that bitter ache because I can’t. I fully recognize the irony that without this whole journey, battle, war, that I probably wouldn’t be feeling like this about my church. I wouldn’t have grown in my faith and let Jesus reign so completely in my heart to move me in this direction. While I sit here agonizing over the months ahead, the year ahead, however much time until things can start to be “normal” again – this time that feels so long to me is but a whisper of seconds to the Lord. If I can live in Him, I can live joy, passion, fulfillment, in the place where I dwell right now. Oh, the agony of this life – how hard it is for humans to lay aside this life for the life we can have, right here on earth, by giving it all to Jesus and being in constant communion with him.
This is me, knowing Jesus is asking for my whole heart, telling me to give him back my burdens so that he can carry them for me. He can make it well with my soul, though I feel the heat of the fires of an enemy – longing to burn me down. Thank you Lord, that your mercies are new each morning. Restore the light of your life in me. “The joy of the Loord is my strength.” Nehemiah 8:10