a new normal
Every morning I wake before the dawn. Sleep has come easily. I am not consumed with my thoughts. I fall into a deep slumber from sheer exhaustion. I am not exercising my body as I once was, I'm emotionally traumatized. I'm walking on water, but my feet are cold and my heart is sick. I'm standing on the heights but my eyes are weary from trying to find a path down to level ground. I'm tired from carrying the emotional burdens of so many others in a storm that does not seem to be subsiding. So we carry on.
Sometimes the baby cries out in his sleep and wakes me. He's restless. I can't help but wonder if the storm has him rattled. He cries out often throughout the morning after I wake up, but he usually goes back to sleep. I project everything I'm carrying onto situations like this. I can't help it. The not knowing has me crazy.
Sometimes the baby cries out in his sleep and wakes me. He's restless. I can't help but wonder if the storm has him rattled. He cries out often throughout the morning after I wake up, but he usually goes back to sleep. I project everything I'm carrying onto situations like this. I can't help it. The not knowing has me crazy.
Sometimes Mose wakes up while I'm completely out, and sneaks into bed with me. He has a terrible snore that wakes me after he's fallen into deep sleep.
Sometimes I open my eyes at 4:57 and nighttime is over for me.
I've always wanted to be someone that got up early, but I stayed up so late night after night, year after year, that I just didn't believe it was even possible. Midnight was my dear friend, the hour that told me my day was nearly over. And not every night, sometimes it was just the checkered flag as I worked myself sick into the wee hours.
Honestly, I love the morning. It's new and fresh and promising. I dream about fixing up our patio in such a way that I can step outside the back door and drink in every second of the morning before my real life begins, snuggled into a comfy wicker couch with my coffee next to a huge stack of books and my Bible, and a soft blanket draped over me to fend off the brisk morning breeze...
I'm dreaming again. It's something I haven't done for a long time. It's life-giving. I used to be that free-spirited dreamer that people wrote songs and stories about. The girl dancing through the field of wildflowers barefoot. This is how people remember me. I lived unabashedly, unashamed of my zeal for everything beautiful.
I almost forgot about her, so much so, that someone sent me a message that said, "I always think of you when I drive by a field of wildflowers" and I couldn't remember why. Life just came in and took me down. ...strapped me with responsibilities, ideas of ideals, laws of faith and belief, and in the meantime I had all these babies. I loved having all these babies. It was what I was born to do. But, God meant for me to be that girl as their mama, and I lost her.
Have you ever lost a kid? Like, for real, that panic, every movie, book, article you'd ever read about kidnapping flashed before your eyes and your heart threatened to explode as you searched frantically for your little lost lamb? I've been there a few times. It's the worst, most terrifying, most life-changing event of all events. When it happened to me, it was in that moment that I picked up the phone to call the hotel concierge that I thought, "This is happening to me. It's real."
"My daughter's missing."
I can still feel it, just writing those words caused my eyes to fill with tears. I'm sick. It's painful. The fear is still there, as if I she isn't in her bed right now, safely home, this very minute. It changed me.
How did I lose myself and not have that same raw emotional response? How did I slip away and not even realize it? I just kept telling myself, "This is what it's supposed to look like. This is servant hood. This is the life you chose, it's a gift. Don't complain. Just. Keep. Going." In the meantime I was slipping so far away that I couldn't even remember what I looked like.
The fields of wildflowers. That was home. Dancing through the flowers barefoot.
I'm determined, now that I know she's gone, to find her again. All is not lost.
lvb
Sometimes I open my eyes at 4:57 and nighttime is over for me.
I've always wanted to be someone that got up early, but I stayed up so late night after night, year after year, that I just didn't believe it was even possible. Midnight was my dear friend, the hour that told me my day was nearly over. And not every night, sometimes it was just the checkered flag as I worked myself sick into the wee hours.
Honestly, I love the morning. It's new and fresh and promising. I dream about fixing up our patio in such a way that I can step outside the back door and drink in every second of the morning before my real life begins, snuggled into a comfy wicker couch with my coffee next to a huge stack of books and my Bible, and a soft blanket draped over me to fend off the brisk morning breeze...
I'm dreaming again. It's something I haven't done for a long time. It's life-giving. I used to be that free-spirited dreamer that people wrote songs and stories about. The girl dancing through the field of wildflowers barefoot. This is how people remember me. I lived unabashedly, unashamed of my zeal for everything beautiful.
I almost forgot about her, so much so, that someone sent me a message that said, "I always think of you when I drive by a field of wildflowers" and I couldn't remember why. Life just came in and took me down. ...strapped me with responsibilities, ideas of ideals, laws of faith and belief, and in the meantime I had all these babies. I loved having all these babies. It was what I was born to do. But, God meant for me to be that girl as their mama, and I lost her.
Have you ever lost a kid? Like, for real, that panic, every movie, book, article you'd ever read about kidnapping flashed before your eyes and your heart threatened to explode as you searched frantically for your little lost lamb? I've been there a few times. It's the worst, most terrifying, most life-changing event of all events. When it happened to me, it was in that moment that I picked up the phone to call the hotel concierge that I thought, "This is happening to me. It's real."
"My daughter's missing."
I can still feel it, just writing those words caused my eyes to fill with tears. I'm sick. It's painful. The fear is still there, as if I she isn't in her bed right now, safely home, this very minute. It changed me.
How did I lose myself and not have that same raw emotional response? How did I slip away and not even realize it? I just kept telling myself, "This is what it's supposed to look like. This is servant hood. This is the life you chose, it's a gift. Don't complain. Just. Keep. Going." In the meantime I was slipping so far away that I couldn't even remember what I looked like.
The fields of wildflowers. That was home. Dancing through the flowers barefoot.
I'm determined, now that I know she's gone, to find her again. All is not lost.
lvb
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