Delivery Ladies and Pack Mules part 2

I am not just “in a time crunch”. I am literally being scrunched in time. I feel like there is so little of it in my life, and so many demands on it, that the cogs of time have caught up my limbs. My arms and forearms, hands, all of them, are being eaten up by it (not my chubby gut though, unfortunately). My cheeks are hollowing and wrinkling in time. The backs of my Scotch-Irish hands are withering up in time. I am 45 years old, and I don’t want to be this old. There are days when I don’t even want to live this life. I vacillate between ennui and sheer joy* that I have so much fullness to my life- job, good health, vacations, Elitches, gorgeous GOOD children whom I dearly love to spend time with, parents who want my company, siblings who laugh at my jokes and hug me when I am sad. So much I want to do and write about and read and see.

But, I have sheer panic other times (in the middle of the night, at 3:30 am, to be precise) when I wake from a dream, a nightmare, of others going on in their lives, finding and loving each other, and I am left out, because I am in this pack mule/delivery lady stage of single parenting.

But- that 3:30 am wakefulness does not need to be about the nightmare. If I can get out of my head long enough (not a simple task, as my friends point out pretty often…), I hear birds singing at 3:30 am. Maybe, just maybe, THAT is what woke me up, birds singing their morning songs. Even though it is night, and the dawn is at least an hour away, the birds sing. They know the light is coming. They have faith. Their little bird brains have more faith than me that Light will come in, and guide them and their lives will continue on, their babies will grow, fledge, and they will get out, fly, get food, live their lives.

My little mustard-seed-sized-faith is not at the bird brain size yet. But it will grow, and yours will too.

“God, guide me and my mustard-seed faith, help it to grow huge. I want the faith that you are leading me on an incredible path that will take me to amazing places I could never even dream of. I want to live in and be your Light. Be with me, care for me the way only You can. Guide me to the love and abundance I am in search of. Thanks God. I know I will see it today because you care for me. Do for me what I cannot do for myself. Help me to find and appreciate the joy, joy, joy that is my life with you.”

Carl (www.crossroadscolorado.com podcasts) says all we need to do is
1. Pray for help
2. Deal with yesterday
3. Grab today with both hands
4. Pray for courage and guts

I have no idea if this works, it seems so simple. But today, it is what I will hang on to. We are in God’s house, where everything is alright, God is with us each step of the way, and we can let God do the worrying for us. My friend Brad would add that if we expect nothing, then everything we receive is a blessing.

May God bless us today. May we receive courage, love, peace, and wisdom as we follow our way in the world.

*If you are a therapist, or a breathing living person, you may come to the conclusion that I am bipolar with all this swinging from joy to sadness and angst. But single parents know that this is just a normal day in the life of being a mom AND a dad in the same body, in the same hours. I don’t even think a person needs to be a single parent to feel this way, it just happens sometimes.