doing life tired …

go …

question: how are you? what is the correct answer? the truth? a convenient lie? silence?

do people really want me to tell them how i really am? or just return the platitude?

Sleeping woman with a cat Wladyslaw Slewinski (ca. 1896)

Lord, i am so tired.

i don’t say that as exasperation to our society’s platitudes. their desire to connect but leave the door open so they cut an run at a moments notice.

i feel like being my friend has become inconvenient for people. i’m one of those transparent, honest kind of people. my friends, yes, i really do have great friends. more than most, i have to admit; i am blessed in that area. so my friends know i’m going to tell them the truth if they ask how i am. and some still ask. others … not so much.

so what’s the answer? my answer is i’m not okay and i’m so very tired.

i function now. for goodness sake, Don has [only] been gone [just a short] three years; and my boy, my Shane, [only] a year and a half.

it’s exhausting keeping up with the inconvenience of my life. to function;  when it means getting out of bed showering and getting dressed. this level of functioning can knock me out with fatigue. i simply cannot explain the fatigue from functioning in a normal human’s day.

it’s complicated, grief driven fatigue. it’s apparently ptsd, too. i don’t know about that diagnosis though. i’m a God believing, born again, Christian who believes healing is for us, for today.

stop …

but wait … there’s more.

so i fane function. i work from home so i can cheat, but most days, after waking from 8 to 9 hours of sleep, as tired as i was when i fell  asleep the night before and get dressed. most days i force myself to do the housework, the office work and those day to day things we all do. when the day meets evening i am in physical pain and tired, bone tired.

and forgive me as  i say … i’m tired of being tired.

i want to engage in my gifts and callings regularly, but i cannot seem to motivate. plus they still bring sadness. Don bought my camera as a Christmas surprise because i love[d] photography, and he loved my photography,  i’m good … well i’m good when my subject is in natural light and stays where i {or God} put them … like flowers and the sky.

and this, my writing. he loved my writing and encouraged me. always and in all things.

so when I do these things [there are still pictures in my camera from a trip i took to Montana last july], i get sad, and a sense of tired discouragement comes over me, and i tend to stop.

honestly, these are supposed to be cathartic activities, they should soothe and help with the healing. but that’s just it …

one does not heal from the loss of chunks of the heart.

think about this [this thought makes my just ache with fatigue] … think about never seeing them again, never hearing their voices or feeling their touch. think about not being able to talk with someone you spoke with every day for thirty years [29 for my boy, but hey], or laughing with them … {i miss the sound of Don’s laughter the most. we laughed everyday for over thirty years.} think about having to jolt yourself to a stop because you step into a room and say their name to tell them something and in that next second of silence remember they are never coming home.

those thoughts would make anyone tired.

so the honest answer to “how are you?”?  i’m tired and i’m not okay … today.

fortunately, i can finally say … ‘today’ at the end of that sentence, sometimes … today. but there are still those “not today” days.

please do me a favor … if someone you know has lost a loved one; a husband, a child…[the absolutely most painful of all deaths, hands down], a parent, even a pet …

don’t ask them how they are. ask them to coffee or lunch even. ask if there’s something you do for them today.

or even better, just say hi! it’s nice to see you.

trust me it will make them feel alive and present. they will remember you were kind, and a true friend when their life was in utter tatters. just saying hi, will make them feel rested because someone had treated them normally and they didn’t have to remember to lie or try to stop the burst of tears, because they just can’t stop the tears when they think about “how” they are.

thanks for reading these musings of a tired widowed mother of the … son who died.

 http://fiveminutefriday.com/linkup/
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On Father God … | Let My Words Be Few … Thursday

My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. 1 John 3:18

I’m reading ‘The Shack’ by William P. Young, again. Yes, it’s that profound. Not just good, PROFOUND. I encourage you read it and then keep in your library … you can find it in paperback for under $8 and on Kindle for less that $5! Follow the link above.

Quickly, I want to address what we think about God’s parenting style in our hard times.

Being what is considered a ‘mature’ Christian I rarely blame or question God. I was awed to discover that I didn’t blame or question God when The Hubs was diagnosed with lung cancer. I did all the things people do when they are presented with the grave, worldly understanding of such a diagnosis.

My head spun, my eyes became water spigots and my heart dropped and ached terribly, for the longest time. I slipped unhindered into a cavern of fear. It was dark and cold and I’d wake in the middle of the night just to check if he was breathing; when even the night before the diagnosis this was not a question in my thought processes. Now (or I should say then, it was over a year ago) it was a constant concern.

We were faced, blindsided by mortality. Oh how offensive that truly can be. I was offended. It never occurred to me that my husband, who had smoked for 40 years, could get cancer! How silly is that? [btw: he was diagnosed with non-smokers cancer, go figure]

But I never questioned God on the why. I just prayed, at first, that desperate wife’s prayer for healing, explaining to God how I couldn’t imagine living without this man he created for me. How I’d want to go with him. That there was nothing left here for me if he was gone. And then it changed, the prayer changed, when I came out of that tailspin. I began to pray the already received promise and thank God for our life so full of blessings. I don’t recall how long it took for the transition I speak of. But it came and I began to move forward, purposefully.

That said, I was reading the book, while waiting at some appointment or other, yesterday.This was the dialog between Mac and his youngest daughter, Missy, that caught my heart:

“Is the Great Spirit another name for God – you know, Jesus’ papa?” Missy

“I would suppose so. It’s a good name for God because he is Spirit and he is Great.” Mac

“Then how come he’s so mean?” Missy. She goes on to question why Jesus was made to die on the cross.

Mac goes on to tell her that Jesus didn’t think God was mean. He said Jesus knew God was full of love and loved him very much. That His daddy didn’t make Him die. Jesus chose to die because he and his daddy loved you and me and everyone in the world; that He saved us from our sickness.”

SAVED us from our sickness.

I knew this all along. I knew it when they presented the diagnosis. I knew it in my tailspin and I knew it when I came up for air. But deep down; did I question God’s logic in all of this?

Maybe, I guess I must have at some point. But I didn’t linger there, because when I think about God and His roll in these things we encounter in this life my head goes to the #1 scripture for the question: “Why, God?”

^{Jeremiah 29:10-13 10} For thus says the Lord: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place. ¹¹ For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. ¹² Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. ¹³ And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.

And the #2:

Isaiah 55:8-10  10“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
⁹ “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.
¹⁰ As the rain and the snow
    come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
    without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
    so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,

For me, this speaks it all, and it’s my husband’s scripture. This scripture has been spoken over my husband by many preachers, many who didn’t know him at all. And it’s the Jeremiah 29:11 always left my husband bristling. =) Not anymore!

God is saying right here, I will visit you in your illness [Babylon] and I will perform My good word [the promises] toward you and I will return you to this place [Divine Health] … for I know what I’ve planned for your life and the plan is good and will give you a future and hope! … and so much more. This scripture is so deep!

I am reassured by it. I know Daddy is not mean, that this illness is not His design for our lives. We don’t allow the illness to define us as a family, The Hubs as a person or our lives going forward. We live our life in forward motion, as though nothing is amiss. We don’t question God about it.

We know that like the rain and snow, we were sent [born] and will not return until we have done our work, planned by the Father, for the kingdom, that He planned for us.

We will fulfill our Kingdom Destinies! And nothing can stop that.

Though we do ask when it will stop; the chaos that comes with this malady. I think that’s a different question.

We call on Him for answers and we pray and He listens. We seek and we find Him because we search for Him with all our hearts, everyday.

So, my question: Are you blaming God for somethings? Are you asking Him why in regard to something or some circumstance in your life?

Know this. Today. Right here. If it’s a bad thing it is not of God’s design for your life, but He will use it so that you come out of it SURE of His presence and love and stronger for the test!

Thanks for reading. Give me your ‘few words’ about where you’re at today with God’s parenting of you in your life. I’d love to share this quiet day with you.