I wake up in the morning and feel tired before I even get moving. My eyes sting and my joints ache. My hips and knees snap, crackle and pop reminiscent of the popular breakfast cereal, and I wonder if I could sleep longer, longer than is even practical... I wonder if it is possible to wake up refreshed. I can not remember ever feeling this way, not one single morning of my life. Not even as a child.
But even more challenging for me to cope with than my physical condition is the spiritual, the emotional, the soulful part of me.
I feel sadness, I feel loss, I feel hopelessness and despair that threatens to swallow me up, even as I watch the interaction of my greatest loves...My husband, my children... I see them fight and smile and laugh, I watch them eat and sleep and grow... and I feel eerily disconnected, as if watching through a smudged, dirty window. It all feels distorted and distant.
I have so much to be grateful for, and I am. Grateful, I mean.
But the struggle is real, to be present, to live this one life full out.
I reach out, straining... I know Jesus is there. I long to experience him more fully. I wonder if I am missing it somehow.
I am just going through the motions, waiting for His touch to become fully alive. I see through a glass, dimly... but I long to see Him face to face, to know Him as I am known....
And so I put one foot in front of the other.
I take a shower. I drink a glass of water. I take my vitamins. I rub honeysuckle scented lotion into my dry skin. I read a psalm. I pray.
All I want to do is lay in bed and do nothing. But I am able to look into the eyes of my husband and feel loved. I can look on tomorrow with hope. I can sleep in peace, awaiting the resurrection of a new day, with all the promise that entails. I can trust that Jesus can right all wrongs, redeem all brokenness, minister reconciliation to the most hopeless situations...
And that He can do it in me. Even me.
And that He can do it in me. Even me.
~amy danielle
Amen and amen.
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