when the buzzer rings, I get up

I am weary.

Yes, life is good, in the sense that, at any given time, I can list a dozen things for which I am deeply grateful. I am still able to view the world and my circumstances through the eyes of a poet. I can rejoice in sunshine and birdsong, and find good even in sleep deprivation and strained friendships.

But it takes a lot of effort. Someone recently told me that I've been a drag, and although it stung that she would say it, it didn't surprise me. I am literally dragging. It must not be pleasant to be around.

In some ways, I'm okay that she felt that way. I want to be alone. I crave solitude and stillness in which to quiet my soul, listen, receive nourishment from God and the good gifts with which He has surrounded me.

But her dig also came packaged with the insidious suggestion that I should just choose happiness. “Just choose.”

Well, I wanted to say, I've been choosing. It's gotten to be dreadfully difficult work, this choosing. I've been choosing and choosing and choosing. I spent the better part of a year listing over one thousand gifts. I've prayed away anxiety more times in the last couple of years than I can count. I've read Scripture when it seemed bone dry, searching for consolation and guidance. I've chosen music to minister to my spirit. I've read book after book on depression and perimenopause and Christian cheerfulness. I've talked to friends and asked for prayer.

And I'm still weary.

But you know what? When I'm tired beyond my bones, into the depths of my spirit, and my children need me, I get up and go to them. When I'm exhausted and longing for peace and quiet, and the buzzer rings to tend supper or change the laundry, I get up and take care of it. When I can't remember the last time I had enough sleep, and the alarm clock jolts me out of the only complete respite available to me, I get up and start my day. When I'd rather sleep just twenty more minutes, I shower and go to my Bible.

When my children's sweet piping voices pierce my eardrums and threaten my sanity, I (usually) smile and answer calmly.

When an anticipated weekend away unexpectedly falls through, I trust that God has better plans for me.

When a friend's “counsel” sounds accusatory, I believe the best of her intentions and thank her.

When one appliance after another needs repairs, I smile and thank God for a skilled husband and the money for parts.

When a friend incomprehensibly turns vitriolic toward me, I seek restoration.

When the children beg for Christmas decorations and I feel less than jolly, I bring down the box and make room for Christmas (and let them use those awful multicolored lights again).

When the internet connection becomes unreliable for over a month, I read & crochet & play my forgotten guitar.

When the car threatens to leave me stranded in the middle of my errands, I change my plans and head home early.

I am choosing happiness, I truly am. It just might not look quite the way you think it should.

And as much as I would love to end by quoting Scripture, what actually comes to mind is one of my all-time favorite quotes, credited to Philo of Alexandria (whoever he was):  "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle."  Which, come to think of it, is not all that different from Jesus himself saying (in Matthew 7:12) that we should treat others the way we would like to be treated.

A friend told me recently that "her" verse had changed as one season of her life began to segue into the next. When I first got on facebook, I posted Galatians 6:9 in that little box that used to be under the profile picture on my own page, so that I would see it frequently and benefit from the exhortation:  "Let us not grow weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up."  While that verse is still very real to me, a different verse comes to my mind often of late:

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls."

Jesus says these words at the end of chapter 11 of Matthew.  The chapter starts with John the Baptist, then in prison, sending disciples to ask Jesus if He is really the Messiah.  I think this ending clinches it.

Jesus saves - from sin, from sickness, from soul-weariness.

I am ready for some rest.

metamorphosis

I am staring again at the chrysalis.

So dry.  So lifeless it hangs there.

No movement for days, weeks.  The first slick green fades, browns, withers a bit.  To all appearances:  dead.

You don't know, you just can't tell, until one morning, the blackest of them - the one we were sure wouldn't hatch anything but a wasp, if that - cracks open to show off velvety wings, brilliant with color, and a perfect black swallowtail flies away.

You just don't know, until that morning.

It all looks dead, hopeless, until that morning.

"...we are nothing, have nothing, can do nothing but sin." writes John Newton.

"And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns."  Philippians 1:6

Sometimes the work is being continued silently, in hidden ways and in hidden places.  Sometimes it all looks dead and lifeless.  And only He knows ...

...until the day when Christ Jesus returns ...   

... that's a long time to wait.

"Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees,"  Hebrews 12:12

"Moses' arms soon became so tired he could no longer hold them up. So Aaron and Hur found a stone for him to sit on. Then they stood on each side of Moses, holding up his hands. So his hands held steady until sunset."  Exodus 17:12

stuck

I knew I was stuck when I finally had a chance (encouraged by my Farmer!) to get into the pottery studio and I didn't even want to sit at the wheel.  I dug some clay out of the reclaim bag and smooshed it like a lousy stress ball.  I made a cracked, ugly pinch-pot.  Braided a lopsided braid.

Then I did what I finally realized I'd wanted to do all along:  slam that clay down as hard as I could.  Felt good.

I talked with my potter friend while I mismanaged the clay, and then left.

: : :

I've been waiting on my blog, too, checking in every couple of days to see if anything had maybe changed in my absence.  But with nothing to say.  Nuthin'.  Not even for my "what's for supper", which should be easy enough to keep up to date.

I'm still stuck.

Not sure when I'll come unstuck (or - oh dear - unglued? unhinged?!).  But I'm still here ... wherever "here" is.

: : :

{This reminds me of when I'd call my little sister and get her answering machine.  She used to have one of those machines with an actual tape in it, I think, so that you only had an allotted time for your message, and then you got cut off.  So naturally I'd try to fill it up, then call back and just pick up where I'd been interrupted.  Maybe chastise the machine's bad manners.  Just filling up space, till she'd pick up - or for her to laugh at, later.}

: : :

This post, I'm just marking time.  Documenting the nothingness, if you will.

And I have every confidence that I'll read it later, and laugh - because something better will have come to pass.  The fog will have cleared, and I will see again.

teaser

No time to write a long post, but I am feeling so different from the teary navel-gazer I was last time I posted that I just want to move that one on down the page.


Did I solve the mysteries of mid-life?

Did I learn the secret of connecting to others in a meaningful way?

Did I break the code on how to truly live trusting God?


Well ... yes, and ... no.  What I did do was give up sugar.  More on that, soon ... !

glimmers of hope

Sometimes, when you're too weak to stand, when you're too weak even to ask for help, friends will come and put your arms around their shoulders and lift you up.


Those are God's shoulders.


Sometimes, when you're too tired to keep back the tears, and they fall to your shame, friends will see, and wipe them for you, with their own hands.


Those are God's hands.


Sometimes, when your own heart is too weary to know the way, friends will beg God on your behalf, pouring their hearts into their prayers.


That is God's heart.

"For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them.  As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness.  

"I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy.  I will shepherd the flock with justice.  I will make a covenant of peace with them and rid the land of savage beasts so that they may live in the wilderness and sleep in the forests in safety.  

"I will make them and the places surrounding my hill a blessing.  I will send down showers in season; there will be showers of blessing."  (from Ezekiel 34)

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

(Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice)

For [God] says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,  and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”  It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.               (Romans 9:15-16)

[words from an old hymn I remember my mother singing in church]

There shall be showers of blessing:  

This is the promise of love.

There shall be seasons refreshing,

Sent from the Savior above.

There shall be showers of blessing;

Send them upon us, O Lord.

Grant to us now a refreshing;

Come and now honor Your Word.

There shall be showers of blessing; 

O that today they might fall,

Now as to God we're confessing,

Now as on Jesus we call!

Showers of blessing,

Showers of blessing we need.

Mercydrops round us are falling,

But for the showers we plead.

(Daniel W. Whittle)

"Mercydrops 'round us are falling, but for the showers we plead ..."

a season for slowing down?

Sometimes, it's helpful to know what's coming around again.

I know in advance that Christmas drives me crazy with unrealized ideals, so I can plan for that (well, I could plan for that, in an ideal world - heheh, irony intended) by doing my shopping early, scheduling times of quiet meditation, planning meaningful family traditions, etc.

Spring allergies have often kept me indoors and miserable, so I can plan ahead to take medicine or herbal remedies (or whatever I think might work that year).

When a birthday is approaching, I can take steps to be prepared with a cake, presents, a special meal.

Thanks to this blog, now I am beginning to catch on to another pattern.  I evidently suffer from Early Spring Slump.  Not an official diagnosis as far as I know, but pretty real in my experience.

For the last couple of months I have been fighting against discouragement, despair, tearful mornings, fatigue, hopelessness, self-criticism, discouragement, despair, tearful mornings, fatigue, hopelessness, self-criticism, discouragement ... repeat ad nauseum.

But because I blogged about it last year, when I began to sink into it this year, it felt just familiar enough for me to think, "hmmmmmm...." before collapsing on the sofa for a nap, yet another unfinished project silently accusing me from the corner.

As you may have guessed from reading this blog, life for me doesn't always sink in until I've written about it, which I guess means that vast quantities of my life's hours are lost in Never-Never Land, since who has time to write it all out? not me; I've got naps to take.  So despite having this Early Spring Slump for years, I usually chalked it up to various other random causes including allergies, postpartum blues, and major life changes.  It took blogging about it to wake me up.

Realizing that it's a cycle doesn't exactly make it enjoyable, but when I read last year's post about it, it did give me hope that it will end (which I kind of suspected, anyway, since I remember a respectable amount of productivity happening between then and now...namely the unfinished projects actually having gotten started).

All the helpful advice in the world (and believe me, I have gotten some) hasn't gotten me jumping for joy between January and March.  I just plow through.

Kind of like I'm doing with this blog post, actually.  I don't see a tidy end to it, but I assume that, like this early spring slump, it will somehow end.  Last year my slump evidently ended around (or before?) my post on March 22.

I've got two days.

fresh air

It's officially spring, and with my favorite season come some decidedly unfavorite things: allergies and post-winter slumps.

What to do about allergies? Drink raw milk. Consume nettles (as tea, or blanched like spinach). Fast. Avoid sugar and refined starches. Saline nasal spray (*shudder*). Neti pot (*double shudder*). Exercise. Avoid contact with pollen (i.e. stay inside, windows closed, all the beautiful season long). If all else fails, surrender to the wonder of modern medicine and dose yourself (you know what I mean - see your doctor for an Rx) with whatever chemicals will do the trick.

The post-winter slump, though, is the real kicker: the worst of winter is over, you've had a few sunny, springlike days, flowers are starting to poke through the warming soil, and your to-do list soars optimistically .... and then, bam! you find yourself sitting around listlessly wondering what happened and what will make it go away. Perky friends exhort you to go outside and enjoy the sunshine! Go for a walk! But you can't seem to find the motivation to get out of the recliner to see if they're right.

Food loses its appeal. Books or movies are just a vehicle to get you to the end of another day. Sleep offers scant respite. Hour plods after hour ..... It all feels vaguely familiar; will it ever end?

Days pass this way.

And then one morning ...

... you wake up and find your mind working again. You think of things to do and - voila! - do them! And it's not an effort anymore. You clean. You cook. You look at people with interest and answer them with a smile that involves more than just your mouth muscles.

What has changed?! The weather is no nicer and no nastier. The chores are no less onerous than before. Your friends have not suddenly blossomed into brilliant comedians. But the slump is over. It's a gift.

Quick! Don't analyze it - just go and live while the living's good!

"The unexamined life may not be worth living, but the life too closely examined may not be lived at all." Mark Twain (apologies to Socrates).