Your Choice of Words

What a week this past week was. I had tried to write a post here, had written a couple sentences, and had asked my husband if he thought I sounded too negative, too drained of life, as I recounted what this past week was like.

"Do you have to use the word grueling to describe it?" he asked me.

"Well, yes, " I answered back, surprised that he didn't see the aptness of the word. "This past week was one of the most grueling weeks in this entire year."

I know what he was thinking, though. A lot of good things happened this week- why should it be a grueling week? We had our son home this week, on Thanksgiving break from college. We had just been down to our niece's wedding in Nashville over the weekend. Then we drove home and celebrated Thanksgiving with a delicious feast at my sister's house on Thursday. And yesterday we got to go to church and worship and hear a message shared by a man who described himself as a pilgrim. I had poked Bill in the arm when the speaker said that word. That word has particular meaning for us.

So we had a meaningful week; a week of celebration and connection with loved ones. But it was emotionally grueling (and even physically, because of all the days of driving and the fact that I don't think we had a single night where we got to sleep more than six hours). And this morning when we got up at 4am ( yes, four o'clock in the morning), and drove to the airport to send our son back to college in Kentucky, we found out, once there, that he couldn't get his connecting flight. Holiday delays and bad weather were mounting an assault on our best laid plans. The next available flight for him would be tomorrow.

Forget about having all your ducks in a row. "For you have need of endurance" (Hebrews 10:36) comes to my mind. But what I'm craving and calling out for, right now, is refreshment- not the ability to endure. Refresh me, God- give me a second wind! Or at least 8 hours of sleep tonight, and maybe I'll see that the second wind is always available.

When you're weary or worn out, you are open to discouragement and depression. And I'm well aware of that creeping enemy of our soul that loves to capitalize on our times of being flat out of fuel. All week long I had a terrible running inner dialogue going that showed I was starting to talk myself down. I was not encouraging myself. I was not building myself up. And sometimes, sometimes, you just have to build yourself up if others don't see that you're fatigued in spirit and flailing and falling. Sometimes you just have to say the words, to yourself, that you need to hear:

He's with you.
HE is able to save.
He rules.
He reigns.
And He loves you- even when you feel tired and flat as a pancake.
He loves you.