I have hesitated writing this post for days now.
After all, who wants to hear it? Who wants to remember it?
But for those of you who love me and have inquired, here it is in all its splendour.
I am miserable. I feel like some super-bug has invaded my body and is going for total annihilation. My poor children have been fending for themselves in between others coming in here and there to rescue them from my unwilling abandon. The guilt grows every day. The house is falling apart, amidst the efforts of my mother-in-law trying to keep things together at the seams. When I hear her working away I want to tell her that she doesn't have to do that, but on the other hand I want to cry for gratitude - if she doesn't do it, who will? (I must give credit to my children who have tried to be helpful and to my husband who comes home every day after work to a messy house and hungry children - enter guilt once more.) I have not slept well for weeks as my body has decided that it needs to wake up and use the bathroom every hour ALL NIGHT LONG!
Somewhere in the middle of all of this perspective is lost. Life changes. And you wonder if it will
ever be the same again. I hate this illness. How can something so good feel so bad? I begin to feel as though it will never end and that I am not expecting a baby at all, put surviving an attack on my entire existence. Anger hits . . . and I entertain it for a moment. Somewhere between the prayers and the bathroom everything is lost in translation. I speak words of acceptance. I pray that I will be willing to accept His will for me, and yet I don't believe it. You see you can desire acceptance while longing for relief. I don't want to suffer this out. I want it taken away. Day after day, night after night, I begin to feel alone and unheard. I want to be better and I want to be better now. And when I am to exhausted to fight anymore and I feel beaten, it is then that the thought comes to my mind, Why do I want to be better? And as soon as I am will I forget at least in part my dependence on Him. This nightmare has a fairly tale ending (I pray). I will get better. This will pass. I will be okay. As much as I have forgotten what it even is to feel normal, I will once more.
And yet if I were to be totally honest I would have to say that when this phase is finished I will still have the reality of adding another soul to our family. The idea is daunting! I love this baby - love has nothing to do with it, but can I care for so many children? Can I, weak and flawed as I am, do a good job at raising people?
I read this quote among another amazing piece of written word, "You don't get to make up most of your story. You get to make peace with it." Perspective returns and I understand. No matter how well we plan, no matter how well we organize, things will happen. Life will throw us curve balls, and we will feebly swing, missing the mark and wondering what is wrong with us, with this. These curve balls can bring us to our end, no strategies left to attempt. And this is where God would have us come, not to stay, but to learn and then move on. This is where we make peace with our lives. Once we have let go the anger, hurt, surprise, unknowing, and reliance on our own strength, then can He step in and do his work. Then will the peace come, His peace. You see God does not sit around tallying all the times me mess up, all the things left on our to-do list at the end of the day. He is already and has always been at peace. He will count my prayers for acceptance of this illness, He will add up my good deeds for the day, even when they are grossly out numbered by the opposite. He will take all I have and ask nothing more and fill in where I lack.
After all, who wants to hear it? Who wants to remember it?
But for those of you who love me and have inquired, here it is in all its splendour.
I am miserable. I feel like some super-bug has invaded my body and is going for total annihilation. My poor children have been fending for themselves in between others coming in here and there to rescue them from my unwilling abandon. The guilt grows every day. The house is falling apart, amidst the efforts of my mother-in-law trying to keep things together at the seams. When I hear her working away I want to tell her that she doesn't have to do that, but on the other hand I want to cry for gratitude - if she doesn't do it, who will? (I must give credit to my children who have tried to be helpful and to my husband who comes home every day after work to a messy house and hungry children - enter guilt once more.) I have not slept well for weeks as my body has decided that it needs to wake up and use the bathroom every hour ALL NIGHT LONG!
Somewhere in the middle of all of this perspective is lost. Life changes. And you wonder if it will
ever be the same again. I hate this illness. How can something so good feel so bad? I begin to feel as though it will never end and that I am not expecting a baby at all, put surviving an attack on my entire existence. Anger hits . . . and I entertain it for a moment. Somewhere between the prayers and the bathroom everything is lost in translation. I speak words of acceptance. I pray that I will be willing to accept His will for me, and yet I don't believe it. You see you can desire acceptance while longing for relief. I don't want to suffer this out. I want it taken away. Day after day, night after night, I begin to feel alone and unheard. I want to be better and I want to be better now. And when I am to exhausted to fight anymore and I feel beaten, it is then that the thought comes to my mind, Why do I want to be better? And as soon as I am will I forget at least in part my dependence on Him. This nightmare has a fairly tale ending (I pray). I will get better. This will pass. I will be okay. As much as I have forgotten what it even is to feel normal, I will once more.
And yet if I were to be totally honest I would have to say that when this phase is finished I will still have the reality of adding another soul to our family. The idea is daunting! I love this baby - love has nothing to do with it, but can I care for so many children? Can I, weak and flawed as I am, do a good job at raising people?
I read this quote among another amazing piece of written word, "You don't get to make up most of your story. You get to make peace with it." Perspective returns and I understand. No matter how well we plan, no matter how well we organize, things will happen. Life will throw us curve balls, and we will feebly swing, missing the mark and wondering what is wrong with us, with this. These curve balls can bring us to our end, no strategies left to attempt. And this is where God would have us come, not to stay, but to learn and then move on. This is where we make peace with our lives. Once we have let go the anger, hurt, surprise, unknowing, and reliance on our own strength, then can He step in and do his work. Then will the peace come, His peace. You see God does not sit around tallying all the times me mess up, all the things left on our to-do list at the end of the day. He is already and has always been at peace. He will count my prayers for acceptance of this illness, He will add up my good deeds for the day, even when they are grossly out numbered by the opposite. He will take all I have and ask nothing more and fill in where I lack.