"I could never do that!"

Melancholy, that is a great description of my current mood. Missing the comforts of my home and my fall decorations, the anticipation of the Christmas season, sitting in my Tuscany yellow family room, feeling the warm (yet not efficient) gas fireplace, with our dog snuggled up on the brick hearth, knocks on the door, with neighbor kids calling to play, maybe a day of making cheeseburger soup and peppermint cookies with Angie, dealing with everyday struggles of kids arguing, decided on what to make for dinner (hoping today is the day the Schwan man makes his rounds), laundry piled in my downstairs bathroom waiting to be laundered, too many bathrooms to clean, and so many other nostalgic memories. Our lives seem so upside down, situations don't make sense, days seem unbearable at times, with problems we cannot solve, so we wait. I thought waiting on our 3rd child was the most difficult thing of my life, and now, it pales in comparison. It does not diminish the pain we endured trying to add to our family, or the despair I felt during the long and arduous wait for Grace, it just lends perspective. In 3rd grade math, I'm teaching about line segments. They always have an endpoint and beginning point. Human nature lends us to want a beginning and an end, it's scientific, organized, orderly, explainable, but the spiritual world is not quite as linear. Dates that I have defined as surely the continuation of my stagnate life have come and gone. As I look back on the past 9 months, it seems entirely too quick and yet, so treacherously long. The things that minister to me now are all those things that talk about God's Strength and my weakness. I can so identify with longing, striving for faith, clinging to God's Promises, the struggle of life. When I tell most people that we've lived with my mother-in-law for the past 9 months, they always responded with, "I could never do that!" Well, my answer to that is, "neither could I!" There are a great many things I couldn't have done, wouldn't have wanted to, nor ever thought I'd have to, none-the-less, here we are doing just that. Many days I feel as if I'm drowning. If you've ever experienced the struggle of trying to breathe or get to a place where you can, while in water, you know how very desperate that metaphor really is. Every fiber of your conscious and unconscious self fights to live, it's a natural thing for our bodies to fight to live, just as it is for our spirit. And my spirit has been pressed! I've felt like leaving, screaming, crying, giving up, medicating, & cursing. I certainly have not come through with much grace, however, I mercily have God's mercy! I can't say when my line with have it's proper dot, signifying the end, but I have to fervently pray that it's soon. I never thought I'd endure these trials this long, I know I couldn't, yet I still am. I don't claim to be stronger than I thought, for that is not the reason for my survival. It's God's hands that have held me when my own strength no longer could.
God, I beg for Your Strength. On my own, I cannot... I have not been particularly successful thus far in reflecting Your Love and Your Glory, but I ask for You to shine, in spite of me.