Safe in HIS arms

More and more I'm feeling the effects of backlog as so much powerful awareness is coming to me. Yet, I've not been able to find the ‘portal of peace' that allows the release of these thoughts to flow out in writing. Tonight I’ve decided whether it’s a place that’s comfortable or not, I GET TO write in the room I wrote many a night as we waited for Jonnae to take her last breath. This house is smothering me. My family seems to be fine and quite content, but I feel like superman would have if imprisoned with cryptonite.

The best way I can describe where I currently find myself is once again a daughter in the lap of her Father. Only this time I’m a child who's so emotional I cry at the drop of a hat; so tired I can’t seem to accomplish the simplest task.

For a while I thought I was coming down with something. In order to be considered an official volunteer with no need for a hospital escort for Wacky Wednesday, I GOT TO get vaccinated with MMR because one the titers evidently wasn’t strong enough for their liking. I don’t have much faith in our medicinal precautions. I wouldn’t have gotten the shot were not for my want to be able to visit the kids and this would keep me from getting permission to do so. I thought the physical fatigue could be the side effects they warned of. I don’t think that’s the case however. Although I feel completely unlike myself and frustrated as a result, I do know what it is. It's fatigue. Complete and total exhaustion, mind, body, and soul.

I've heard the spiritual guidance suggesting it's time to rest, to allow solutions to arise and trust help will come. Yet, I've continued to seek, work, and wear myself out. As a result of not listening to my wiser self, the weaker self has the ball in her court. Just as the sports ad states, I believe life is a game of you vs you. I have been so distracted by the dollar and where the next one will come from, I've been giving away my joy and power to create fulfilled days.

As soon as I had resolved to listen to the voice of reason and rest, the distraction known as financial instability screamed louder, "Not gonna happen." My husband was hospitalized for stroke symptoms. After every test in the book, the only explanation the doctors had was stress. As a result my children want to know when I'm going to help relieve the family’s stress, stop chasing a dream of passion and purpose and get a "real job." I understand their questions, concerns, and thinking. However, I refuse to sign up for a life of dragging myself to a job I don't enjoy, away from what I know is my calling, with no say of whether or not I'm surrounding myself with positive spiritual people, for the sake of receiving a consistent paycheck.

It's become apparent there is no 'normal' life for me to experience anymore and for that I am truly MOST grateful. If I could, I wouldn't have Jonnae come back if it meant going back to the person I was. She wouldn't want different than what is for me or for her.

There is so much in the way of reconstruction and reentry into life after releasing a child into Heaven. The most difficult being I feel like I'm conscious in an unconscious world.

How was it with a daughter fighting for her life, just the two of us quarantined in a hotel suite for a month of waiting, I experienced heaven on earth? I can tell you how it was. We were shown love and support from a community that wanted to give us peace however they could. There was no worry of how bills would get paid because of them. We could watch movies, create art, and enjoy the gift of simply being together for the time we had. There was no one attacking us with their opinions of what we should or shouldn’t be doing. There was simply time and filling it with love of one another and God.

Watching her suffer, unable to imagine what life would be like without her, my heart was breaking, yet life was miraculously beautiful. Now, even though my heart is forever broken, still, I know I can live a peaceful, joyfilled life. I've already lived it to know it's possible. God's placed this dream on my heart to speak and write and discerned many times His wants for and from me. Most of the time I'm really excited about what I believe is to come and I'm content if it doesn't.

Then there are times like this, where I'm struggling with everything. I don't require much to be happy, energetic, and excited about this gift called life. I can clearly see the vision and don’t mind that it’s going to take a lot of perseverance to get there. If I were just able to stay with my eyes on God and not get distracted by financial insecurity and the “normal living” of the world.

As much as I want to keep God in my sight and share words written and spoken with people anxious to be at God's banquet with me, I have a family with needs that I'm not contributing to when it comes to income and finances. Without the team I dream of having to direct, support, and experience this 'ride' with me, no full schedule of events to speak at, no sacred space to escape to for writing, I'm experiencing long lonely days in a quiet home that we are blessed to have, yet most painful memories of a life no longer here loom in every room. I go to sleep remembering shared heart wrenching conversations I had with my ‘mini me’ while she lay in my bed and where I woke to find her peaceful face and lifeless body. I eat where she cooked food for her baby (her dog Sassy..and yes I did say she cooked for her) and where she loved to paint fingernails. (mine and hers) The family room is where she sat lifelessly while my mother massaged her feet; where she mumbled and groaned as her platelets dropped and blood clotted in her nose and mouth. Lydia moved into Jonnae’s room, yet I can’t share time with her in there without recalling all the time I shared with her sister. These are natural emotions, memories, and challenges, yet I know as long as I’m in this house, I’m bound to them.

Where does the help come from? When do the dreams seem within reach? Where does the motivation come from for me to do what's necessary to feel like myself again? I know If it’s meant to be, it’s up to me. I know this is a season that will pass. It's a season like several I've already lived through and will survive again. God is my strength and He’s never failed me.

I am a bit surprised, and a bit aggravated, that it's a season that’s come now. Winter is the month I have a tendency to feel ‘dead’, not fall. If I’m feeling like this now, what do I GET TO do to keep me from dragging it out through the real ‘gray season?’ I’m sick of days being like sand through the hour glass. (Oh brother, really? I’m going to use the opening of a daytime soap opera? I decided to lighten it up and inject some humor :D) Seriously, if not for Ellen Degeneres and America’s Funny Home videos I’d be in much worse shape. Laughter is the best medicine! I may have dropped some of the habits that better serve me, but I will never stop turning to humor as my knot on the end of the rope to get me climbing out of the pit. Humor and the Love of God, two things that are never out of my grasp. I may be tired, but I’m safe in His arms!