I guess I hadn’t realized how much the world was getting to me. The daily news reports of the economy were taking their toll along with my own struggles to balance the checkbook. Each trip to the grocery store seemed to end with increasing costs but fewer grocery bags to show for it. Two of our neighbors out of work with not much promise for new jobs. Homes around the neighborhood up for sell in desperation. And it wasn’t just economic issues. I was trying to help my aging mother, while maintaining her dignity. My brother in law’s health was going downhill fast. Reports of the fires in Australia, tornadoes in Oklahoma and ice storms in the Midwest. The dishwasher was making strange noises. I had 64 emails waiting for replies. I needed to get started on taxes. It was all affecting me. I was losing sleep. I was losing focus.
The words of a hymn came into my mind.
Where can I turn for peace? Where is my solace,
When other sources cease to make me whole?
When with a wounded heart, anger, or malice,
I draw myself apart, searching my soul.
Where, when my aching grows, where when I languish,
Where in my need to know, where can I run?
Where is the quiet hand to calm my anguish?
Who, who can understand: He, only One.
I knew the answers. I was reading my scriptures. I was praying. I fasted. We attended the temple more often. I was serving in my calling and doing my visiting teaching. I was trying to serve others. And while those things did help some, I continued to feel that dark, negative doubt in the back of my mind and in my moments of quiet. Was this normal? Was it just a sign of the times? I kept it all to myself and went about the motions of life as usual.
Then it happened. My daughter had her baby. I walked out of my normal stress-filled life and focused solely on that eternal role of Motherhood. I held the newborn. I held the not-yet-two-year old and I even held my own daughter as things got complicated. Anyone who brings home a new baby knows that it is far from a stress-free experience. Along with the normal adjustments, that first week at my daughter’s house also involved two Emergency Room visits. Nights were anything but sleep-filled. Days seemed non-stop for many reasons. I worked harder physically than I had in a long time. And yet, I was calm, I was fulfilled, I had found my peace. I was a daughter of God helping another daughter of God become a mother. The world disappeared and my eternal significance increased.
Eventually things calmed down for the new family and it was time for me to return to my bank statements, my mother’s struggles, and my noisy dishwasher. But even with the lack of sleep, I was able to cope. I had filled up what had become emptied—my divine role of mother.
He answers privately, reaches my reaching.
In my Gethsemane, Savior and Friend.
Gentle the peace He finds for my beseeching,
Constant He is and kind, love without end.
I do recognize that my daughter can’t have a new baby every time my life feels overly demanding. So it’s now up to me to not lose touch of that great eternal role and push the world back a little each day to keep that gentle peace and recognize the private, constant ways that He continues to reach my reaching.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Thursday, January 8, 2009
New Beginnings
I'm new at this. I didn't really think I needed a blog with all my children grown and each day very much the same. But alas and alack, an opportunity has come to share some of my writings and I need a blog. So here I am starting out trying to learn something new.
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