Being Dragged

My brain is tired.

I haven't been able to find the time, let alone the inspiration, to blog the last few weeks. March was the sort of month that you come to the end of feeling ridiculously exhausted, but everything's a blur so you're not sure why.

"Ridden hard and put away wet" as my mom would say. And then we'd all snicker at her, because she's a hillbilly and we have dirty minds.

I don't do well with business. Not the normal business of life, like getting chores done and taking care of the kids. It's the extra things and the stuff that's not routine that makes it hard for me to focus. Things start to feel cluttered, both physically and mentally, and the walls seem to close in on me. When business starts to heat up, I feel a bit like Homegirl when she's taking a walk. She doesn't want to hold someone's hand, she wants to blaze her own trail. But when the authority takes her by the wrist and leads her, it's a bit more like dragging than walking.

A room project (and the mess that comes with it), sickness and doctor's visits, Seth's work schedule changing a bit, three excruciating weeks of parenting, a busy holiday, and attacking homeschool with everything I've got....whew.

And there are also the mental things that seem to be piling up. As usual, the problems arising tend to deal with money. It's not nearly as bad as it once was (praise the Lord), but there seem to be big expenses looming everywhere we turn. We have a large, dying tree in our backyard that needs to come down asap. We've got our trip to Chicago coming up that we've already put off for two years that I'm really, really, really looking forward to. The van is going to need replacing at some point soon. I'm treating it very gently and doing a lot of "Sunday driving" as Seth calls it. Some (a lot) of things around here need repairing or replacing and the only thing holding up progress is money. And I just found out today that the weird thing on our dog's eye is actually a tumor that needs addressing before it becomes an even more expensive emergency.

I'm trying to calmly tell myself that we've been through worse. But the "what-ifs" keep nagging at me. That tree could come down and not only damage our house but physically harm us. George's eye could deteriorate rapidly and explode all over. The van could die, or worse, stop working while I'm driving it. 

These are annoying, because I'm not usually a fretter. I'm far too lazy to really get worked up about things and I'm far too realistic to imagine every bad thing happening. But every so often, life likes to remind me that I have no control over anything except my response. My kids seem to be intent on me learning this lesson lately too.

I don't want to be stressed. But I also can't ignore the issues.

So, I've been doing a lot of praying. I struggle with wanting to do more than "just praying", because I long for control and a quick fix so I can return to my peaceful, normal pace of life. But it's good to be reminded that God is sovereign, paying attention, and ready to guide me.

I know I'm not the only one here feeling like I'm swimming upstream. Even with my sincere affection for normalcy, life happens, and we're not given a magic 8 ball to tell us exactly how to finagle problems. But we do know the source of peace, the one who can see in the dark and has a firm grip on our hands.

"And we know that God causes all things to work together 

for good to those who love God, to those who are called 

according to His purpose."