Sometimes it's about calling a friend because of the feeling in your gut that something is really wrong, only to have her call you back an hour later, sobbing because your call came at "exactly the right time" with exactly what she needed to hear.
Sometimes it's about not knowing what to say when someone you love insults you. Wondering about how to handle it, if it's best to just swallow it and let it go or be honest about how deep this wounds you.
It's about feeling the desperate need for replenishment, for rest, for restoration....but not the means. Feeling like there's an essential piece of you missing, but being unable to find it because you're already divided up among so many others.
It can't always be about goofy potty conversations and messy kitchens. Interwoven in the routines of the day is very real discontent, frustrations, anxiety, and fear. And it's so hard to combat it when there's barely time to breathe, let alone to read, to rest, to recharge, to run, to connect, to study truth.
Sometimes it's about very real anger that explodes out over a simple request for peanut butter sandwiches for lunch or raw frustration over a schedule gone rogue.
Sometimes it's takes all of us, every ounce and then some, to hold it together until naptime.
Maybe, if we're very lucky, that naptime will be quiet and still. The baby will be breathing slowly and heavily within minutes and the big kid will be engrossed in a Lego masterpiece or the imaginary world of pirates and mermaids. It might only be for ten minutes. I wish I could say that ten minutes is enough, that the brief sliver of calm it brings is enough to sit down, to relax, to open the Word and set everything right.
But it rarely is. Sometimes it's not even enough time to complete a solo bathroom trip before someone is throwing plastic ninja stars at the door and demanding you come tie on their cape or zip their pants. Or both.
How do others do it?
How do they rise early every day without the fatigue destroying them mid-afternoon while I struggle to keep my eyes open on the drive home from work?
How do they lace up the running shoes every day and fit in 5 miles on the trail while mine lie buried in the closet?
How do they turn the pages until chapter after chapter lies in the rear-view mirror while my books collect dust on my bedside table?
How do they meet with the Lord daily and immerse themselves in his Word when I desperately grasp at random minutes in the day to open its pages without spilling my reheated coffee on the thin paper?
How do they pray so intensely and faithfully when I find myself just rattling off a shopping list of requests?
It can't always be funny.
Sometimes it's just plain hard.
Wait for the LORD;
be strong, and let your heart take courage;
wait for the LORD! (Psalm 27:14)
