Sometimes blessings become burdens. Sometimes dreams become drudgery.
It's not supposed to be this way. We never thought it would be this way. Not when we laid in that big empty bed in our twenties and not when we saw that empty room waiting to be filled with baby furniture. It was going to be beautiful and perfect and bad days would forever be behind.
*This is where the pretty music back-grounding the pink, soft pictures of the commercial ends and the rock music starts with real-life images flashing in startling harsh colors across the screen.*
Because that's what happens. The daydreams become reality and sometimes, reality is more than we thought it would be.
Not one thing gets accomplished because interruptions prevent. A hurt child, fighting children, assistance needed in the bathroom, the talking child who is insistent on answers now, the one who needs to nurse--again, the overflowing washing machine, the burning cookies, the "helping" child. . . It's tempting to give up and stare mindlessly at the TV instead of trying to plod into the faithfulness of a routine that provides structure, orderliness, and a healthy environment.
The solitude of singleness and barreness that produced the fruit of lonely tears has long ago disappeared and now, is desperately craved. With the rising of the early bird child before dawn, to the energy of the night owl child (way) past sunset, who needs a drink and a hug and the monster to be chased away and a song and the bathroom and another drink and another monster killed and another hug. . . to our spouse who comes to us as we're finally sitting down for a "me moment" and asks, "Aren't you coming to bed?" with that tone, the moments of finding quiet and re-centering are few and far between.
We scream internally and it comes out in yells externally until spouse and children are looking at us like we've grown three additional heads because what in the world has set us off?
We can't even define it ourselves. We only know we have this sense of being always needed, always clung to, almost trapped, constant irritation, and even resentment that is trying to take up lodging. And then, there is always the vague sense of self-hate, because these feelings are even hinting at their existence.
"God wills that we should push into His presence and live our whole life there."
~ A. W. Tozer
Such a statement adds to the guilt.
Live our lives in God's presence? We can barely live it within the presence of our family without tearing our hair out and crumpling in tears from the pressure of trying to be all things to all family members. Now we feel the failure that not only are we an emotional disaster, we aren't living in His presence either.
But wait.
There is no guilt here.
This is the promise that lifts us up out of the confined box of emotions and guilt and failure.
This is our rope.
We crawl into His presence on hands and knees, bowed down with guilt and shame over the weary resentment we feel over being so needed and so demanded of and so wanted, twenty-four hours a day. We crawl into His presence, unable to even walk because we're just so tired and weepy and overcome with failure as wife and Mama. We cast ourselves at His feet and lay there utterly spent.
And then, we begin casting the rest.
I cast on You God, my need for some alone time. . . I cast on You my lack of love for my family because I only feel exhausted irritation instead. . . I cast on You God, the lack of time to clean and prepare the meals and keep up with the laundry and do the school/home work and play with the kids every time they ask and answer every question they have. . . I cast on You the desire to be all and be everything for them. . . I cast on You God my wish I could find time to do something that doesn't involve a rag and cleaning spray, dish detergent, laundry detergent, scattered toys, crumbs, and thrown about blankets and clothes and shoes. . . I cast on You, my longing to have more of You and to truly live life from Your presence. . . I cast on You my inability to achieve this.
You, God, take this! Take these longing and emotions and tears and do with them what You will. Show me how this can be redeemed from Your divine power that has given me all I need to live a life of godliness and do the purpose You have created me to fulfill.
We cast and He catches and assurance settles in that we've done the only thing we can, the only thing required: throw ourselves down and put it all on Him--because we simply can not take it on ourselves any longer. It just is too much.
We are His, our spouse is His, our children are His. And now, our longing to do right by them and honor Him and be women full of godly, loving passion is His, because even that we can't conjure up without His interaction in our hearts.
How desperate we are for Him!
We lay at His feet in the emotional, drained, weary mess we are. In this tired, huddled mess we find the end of us and the beginning of Him. Our desperate exhaustion has driven us here. This is the beauty. That the draining of us has taken us to the dwelling of Him.
