Good grief! I guess I’m not done yet…

A full night’s sleep has become something of a distant memory for me now.  It seems I can’t focus and the things I say I’m going to do keep going undone.

Could I still be grieving?

My mother would have been 66 today had God not invited her home last January.

I know I’ve faced a lot the last few months but I am aware of what brings me joy…yet as I comb through websites and find myself reading book after book and article after article about sleep deprivation and home remedies I still end up more tired that I was when I began.

Chronic Fatigue? Adrenal Fatigue? Over-stressed?

I suppose by the symptoms it would seem I’ve become a prime candidate for all three. A year ago it wasn’t nearly this hard. I admit I have always done a little bit too much.  I’ve tried to shave things off my plate to make room for those who matter and the things that should, but lately it seems that lines have been blurred. It seems I have a hundred things in my mind at one time and all I want to do is have the ideas, issues, and things to slow down…

Slow Down…something that I haven’t been able to do….to do list….wow something I recall having even in high school!  I’d calculate the time I needed to accomplish things, list what needed to be done, and do it with time to spare…Where exactly has all that time gone.  Is it that my list has grown too long or that it is full matters that would be best left omitted?  There are so many questions I can’t answer. Yet, my mind constantly wonders about all the possibilities and what if’s anyway.

I need silence.  My eyes beg for solace.  I yearn for a stillness that I used to have.

Last year.  Things were not as hard as my right now.  I had goals. I could focus….at least some of the time.  So last week I began reading yet another book to solve this dilemma.

I tired of it immediately.

It’s one thing to know a thing and entirely another to apply what you know to impact your outcome.

Last year on Resurrection Sunday, I took an unplanned trip to see my mother.  I’d seen pictures of her in her frailty before that trek and perhaps the reality of those shots hindered my willingness to visit more often prior to that moment, but now I understand why for at least a year, I’ve been chasing my tail….doing so much and accomplishing so little.

I saw her.

…and the realization that I could “do nothing” to fix her plagued me….the fact that I could do nothing to fix “us” still dances in my mind from that moment until the present one….

Seeing her then did something to me that I hadn’t had the courage to admit until now. It did something to me that I hadn’t had the willingness to let go until today. Although she’s passed and is in peace with our Father in heaven, I’d actually been plugged up with so much anxiety because in some small way, I believed that by not completing some of the tasks I’d planned to do that I failed her.

I know it might sound odd and while it might be hard for some people to grasp, God knew I’d get here.  He also knew that the only way that I would stop “doing” is only if I had no choice.  So spiritually and physically drained I found myself in tears in a bible study class I’d visited miles away from where I currently reside, but all too close from where I’d attempted my escape years prior.

I’d blurred the lines of people pleasing with God-pleasing.  I mistakenly made the “I” in I can do all things through Christ bigger than the only One who could strengthen me regardless of what I encountered…even the death of my mother.  I considered this would be just another thing that “I” could handle alone.

I was wrong.

Blinded by my own pride, I like the lone beggar in Mark 10 finally cried out for His direction despite the advice from all the “self-help” books I’d perused.  And like He addressed Bartimaeus, I felt Jesus requesting the same of me Sunday during that service:

“What do you want Me to do for you?”

I’ve pondered the question for the last two days, but now I have an answer.

Lord, I too want You to Restore my sight.  Help me again to see the good in the grief I’ve faced.  Restore my focus for Your glory.  Amen.

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