My Place

Yesterday was hard.  The cabin fever of the last few weeks seemed to reach a fever pitch at the precise time that 3rd trimester pregnancy exhaustion and hormone surge knocked me over the head.  The result was not pretty - not pretty at all.

I laid upstairs in bed in a self-prescribed "time out," thinking it over and over - "I'm exhausted.  I'm irritable.  I'm out of control."  The trouble is, with a house full of little ones and bigger ones to school, no less, a recharge is nowhere in sight.  I decided to take action.

Today I leaned heavily on the good will and charity of my sweet sister in law and took off in a snowstorm to get some much needed errands done. Namely, my license was lost/stolen an embarrassingly long time ago and I finally got around to getting a new one.

Sitting in the Secretary of State office alone, I tried to enjoy it.  This is peace - I got out of the house, I was without a clanging brood of little people.  No one was asking anything of me and even the babe I carry with me was blessedly still, as if knowing Mama needed just this time to breathe.  I wasn't prepared for how odd it felt and, oddly, how miserable I was.  I felt as if I had been amputated.  I'm not used to so much quiet, so much stillness.  So little laughter (and screaming and talking and tattling and...).  I'm not used to being just me, as opposed to the heart and soul, the center of a noisy, raucous, life-filled clan.

I was gone a whopping 35 minutes, and goodness if I didn't feel like myself again when I stepped back into my warm kitchen, with children and clutter and noise galore.  I'm hopeless, really - I can't even get away to recharge because that no longer recharges me.

As tired and cranky and yes, cabin fevered as I am - there isn't a place on earth that I'd rather be than in this little house surrounded by all these people, all their needs and wants and expectations and demands.  Somewhere along the past ten years, who I am has become seamlessly melded with what I do.

On the drive home, this verse came to mind:

James 1:2-4

My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, ³ knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. ⁴ But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

These long winter days seem full of trials, but I can see it now - this is my place, and it's joy, too.

{Psst - are you struggling these days, too?  Maybe it would help to know someone is carrying the load...}


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