There are those moments in life, often through great tragedy, that offer themselves as wake up calls. There are those events both remote to our lives and intimately enmeshed in our lives which shock us out of the routine humdrum which we, often without knowing it, have settled into. And I wonder can we ever be sustained for more than a little while doing anything other than sleepwalking through our days.
I get so overwhelmed by the amount of picking up that must go on on any given day. I grow weary of the "Repeat" button which seems to have been mashed down and gotten stuck. I often feel like real life is just on the other side of some unseen obstacle, which if I could just make out through the haze I could surmount and conquer. I often am overtaken by abject soul weariness, along with bodily exhaustion. Writing, I am flooded with tears, grieving for the life I waste so much of the time. Crying out, because I can't seem to make out the crossable ford to navigate to where I want to be.
How do we go about being fully alive? How do stave off lives of "quiet desperation"? How do we respond to the beckoning " ‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead..."? Is it idealistic folly to believe that this can be done not just for glimpses of time when we are reminded of life's sacredness, but rather for most of our lives?
grace.....to be who we are in Jesus. to model repentence to our kids. to wake up each day and just do the next thing. to trust that God is at work in all things....even the mundane, even the repeat.
ReplyDeleteashlie, in athens, GA
(i've met you at the pool a few times.i have a lucy too) we live in winterville, actually.
To get past the exhaustion. I feel like my first year with Joseph has been lived in an overexhausted dream. Almost a nightmare. Now I am happy, content, and I feel fully alive. You have five, incredibly active young children. I know it does not help to say 'they will not always be so young' because you want it to get better now. I will admit that I am already dreading the first year of my second child. And I can not imagine how busy life is with five. Yet the todler won't remain a todler. And it's all right to start expecting of the older children to mind their younger siblings a bit here and there so you have more time to a. be less exhausted. b. get your brain back in working order. And c. find a passion to fit into your schedule.
ReplyDeleteThanks ladies!(((hug))) I needed a bit of encouragement yesterday. Ashlie- it's great to "see" you! I am looking forward longingly to the summer....
ReplyDeleteEva- I don't think I ever said thnak you for mybeautiful, beautiful bookmark. I treasure it!!
Yeah...sleep...I don't know how to fix that. I've been up since like 4:00...and in theory that could be great, but because we're such close quarters I can't actually do much of anything, and I am too sleepy to read much more than internet fodder. *sigh* To quote the Bosstones, "Someday , I suppose" It seems ridiculous to say it--but a lack of space seriously impedes some of my progress towards brain function and passion following. It's hard to read, when you don't have anywhere to sit down where children are not.
AJ Heschel expressed much the same thing: "To be is a blessing, to live is holy."
ReplyDeleteLove
Jer