When I am Spent

They lie on the couch and the chair with their blankets and pillows as the fireplace fan spreads its warm all over the living room.  My children are ill, but it hasn’t caught up with me yet, so I empathize and make toast and kiss foreheads and let them watch The Disney Channel for days.  Sure, I have lots to do, but proirities take over and I do what must be done, amazed at the love God has granted me to lovingly serve my sick kiddos.

But that was yesterday, and the day before and the two days before that.  And now I’m tired and the compassion wanes as the fevers endure.  This morning, I wake up and find it difficult to serve.  I see the demands and grow grumpy with them.  The compassion feels gone. Haven’t I served my time?  Haven’t I seen enough Phineas and Ferb?

I climb the stairs again to grab another pillow and plead with God to please help me.  Help me love them.  Help me serve them.  Help me show my kids how much You love them with the grace I impart even now when I don’t feel like it.  Especially now when I don’t feel like it.

And the rubber meets the road right here in my hallway.  As I beg the everlasting, Almighty God Who lives in me, for the strength to just get the pillow, He unveils a truth to my soul and whispers a reminder about whose strength I need.  Whose energy it is that will get me up the stairs and back down again, to love and nurture the broken-for-now.  And I realize that right here, today, is where the true Christ-in-me fortitude will be unwrapped, the joy that is Him alone.  Here’s where my weak is His strong.  I can’t know the true strength of His might unless I realize mine is not strength at all.

So now I wait as I unwrap His promise to be faithful and good and to supply all my needs.  I trust Him for that strength and I love my kids as best I can and I pray for His joy to be mine even as I gather crumpled-up tissues and endless dirty dishes.  And I thank Him for the reminder of unwrapping a Tuesday gift with my friends at Chatting at the Sky.