Hope and fatique

"We are all in the gutter. But some of us are looking at the stars." ~Oscar Wilde

This week has been very, very challenging. I am preparing to be part of an intervention with a precious family member due to alcohol abuse. Andy and I are full of hope and anguish all mixed together. This "meeting" and the months that follow will, I am sure, call us into dark places that I would rather not go. I can not express how much I would rather stay in our quiet, candle-lit, sweet home and pretend it all away.

And besides that huge challenge, this week has just been fuller than full. For starters, I spent two days (6 hours total-I counted) retrieving, completing, and turning in paper work for the children's passports. I could write a book about what to do and not to do. It was really dreadful!

I also inventoried, tagged, and labeled 160 items for my spring consignment sale-all in one day. And the thing is, any challenge that comes along in the course of the week is accompanied with the usual amount of chores, laundry, extracurricular lessons for the children, and homeschooling, of course. I have taken my usual 14-16 hour work day and expanded it! So I am basically tired, emotional, and just not present.

As I have been crying out to God, I finally felt like He lead me to a sweet passage this morning. I was reading to the children the story of Peter and Jesus walking on water. In a nutshell, Peter trusted Jesus to be able to do the impossible. But when he stopped and turned to see the storm that was coming, he sank. And that lead me to think about Lot's wife. She was given the option of safety, but she had to stop and turn to look back at her "storm", and she died as a result. And I was reminded to keep my eyes on Christ. Every day this week has been filled with what seemed like an impossible amount of things to do that needed to be done THAT day! And with the intervention, the healing that needs to take place seems highly unlikely, to say the least. But it is not my responsibility to stop and dwell on what I have been called to do, or the storms that God has put in my path. If I keep my eyes on Christ, communing with Him faithfully, I will see His power and glory for what it is. Then these tasks, challenges, hardened hearts will seem surmountable because He gives me Hope. He is mighty and big and able to do "exceedingly and abundantly all that we ask or imagine". I have "tasted and seen that the Lord is good", real, and trustworthy. It is so very difficult to march into painful, uncharted territory. But I will do so with HOPE! And if things do not turn out the way that I would like, I know my faith will be strengthened just for walking the journey with my Savior.

Pictured above: An old picture of Lydie that makes me smile!