Never alone

Today I am overwhelmed. With life. With my mother's surgery and very slow recovery. With 15 years of fibromyalgia. With teens. With a faith community I feel on the fringes of. With a culture that seems to have little room for me. With stuck relationships. With adjusting who the world told me I should be to what I am. With feeling limited. With wanting more. With knowing when to push. And when to patiently wait. With thinking I should be thankful. With the stress/mess of Christmas.

Pastel and Conte´ crayon on paper

I simply can not move as fast as the world demands. I lost November, but, even then, was physically back in summer. And, I've really been exploring Easter themes, not Christmas. The cross sticks with me. I have had profound, for me, insights about it recently. But, not today. Today, I want someone to listen. Really listen.

I lost in in the sauna after swimming laps this morning. And again in the shower. And I kept thinking about the cross and what this had to do with that. Then I remembered my new prayer: to lay my burdens at the feet of Jesus and give the rest of me to Spirit. Alone in the sauna and alone in the shower, I did feel heard. As a tear rolled down my cheek, I understood it was as if it rolled down God's as well. I had the flash of detaching and seeing how God views me. With love and compassion. I need to offer that to myself.

My heart is aching. Aching at watching my mother live alone in a skilled-nursing center as she very slowly recovers from massive heart surgery. Twelve days on a ventilator and 17 in bed in ICU have taken a toll. One of her new friends learned it takes three times longer to strengthen what you have lost. That was confirmed by one of her three therapists. Heaped on that are the memory loss, the anesthesia and pain meds working their way out of her body. 

Overwhelming until you look at the little, daily things. Such as her color is better. Her voice stronger. Her humor is back. She's made a table of friends. She's been reacquainted with others she hadn't realized live there. Her therapists say she is progressing. She's eating. She's off thickened liquids and swallowing better. She's alive, surviving a complicated surgery.

And she may be home before Christmas. 

Thinking the past weeks have been such a whirlwind that I need to let things catch up in my mind, body and spirit. I may need to feel overwhelmed and sad, maybe even mad. And in all of that, remember to lay it as Jesus' feet and save the rest, the best for God. AND spread some of that on myself.

Releasing a layer of that burden, I can now feel and express my deep gratitude to Spirit for guiding my mother through the surgery and into recovery. For empowering my dad to handle it all, mostly with grace, and keep himself strong. For giving me steadfast sisters to share the ordeal and family and friends who care.

I am blessed. Even on the days I am overwhelmed.

• What overwhelms me?
• How do I deal with it?
• How does Jesus or Spirit enter into that solution?
• What happens when I surrender those feelings?
• How does God transform my life, my pain and my burdens?


moving so quickly,
it's easy to get
caught up

and roll right
along

from task to
task, happy
to have a focus

because the
true focus
may just be
too much

until there is time
and the time
is right

to be with it
all, feeling
alone

remembering to
pray and being

reminded
we are never
alone

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