Melancholy Day

Blah.  That is what I am feeling today.  All the “little things” are going wrong; nothing monumental, just irritatingly comical.

I made my daughter a fresh fruit cup for her lunch this morning.  Diced cantaloupe, blueberries and grapes, all prepared and then placed BACK in the refrigerator for me to find mid-morning.  WHERE IS MY BRAIN?

Go to put my make up on (this is no longer an everyday occurrence around here, just sayin’) and somehow manage to squirt half of the tube all over my hand.  WHERE IS MY BRAIN?

Put a pot of water with 7 chicken breasts on to boil for tonight’s enchiladas and walk down the hall to my office to start my workday.  Fast forward a few hours to the exterminator spraying for my gazillion ants that march around the exterior of my home and me smelling something odd.  Oh that?  That’s the smell of chicken dry cooking in the bottom of a stock pot that boiled all of its water plum dry.  WHERE IS MY BRAIN?

I won’t even bore you with the other “things” on today’s list so far.  It’s only noon, people…NOON.

I want to scream “DO OVER” and crawl under one of my Tim blankets, but that’s not really an option anymore is it?

I don’t get to text my man about the hilariously frustrating antics of my morning.  

He can’t reply, “Reservations made for two at Boulevard Steakhouse for 7:00 PM, I’m your designated driver tonight, Babe.  Kids can eat cereal J.”

Instead, I still have to get my 8 hours of work in, still have to cycle the laundry, still have to clean up the mud on the floor (and my legs, and my clothes) from my parents dog (don’t ask), still have to run afternoon carpool and have dinner on the table by 6…all with not a cotton pickin’ blasted thing to look forward to at the end of my day.  No long hug from my hubby.  No shared laughter over those delectable button mushrooms I haven’t tasted in three years.  No encouragement that “we are in this together”.  It leaves me melancholy.

I am melancholy, weepy, and a tad bit angry that I can’t have the life of my dreams back. 

I decide to turn on Christian music (I am a BIG TIME music girl…love it so much.)  I read more than one devotional to bring my focus back to Christ.  Review my own upcoming article written for A Widow’s Might that will publish next Friday.  Ironically it is titled “Wholly Surrendered”.  Post a prayer request on a private page for the writers of that ministry, women who “get it” and will pray for me, text me, call me, message me with encouragement.  I cry out to God to change my heart, transform my emotions, and refocus my negative thoughts. 

This is what He whispers into the chaos of my morning:

“I love you.  Allow yourself this moment in time to just cry and grieve and be the mess that you are.  I've blessed you with a sense of humor, keep laughing.  Things could be (and have been) so much worse.  Trust Me Lori! Remember, I've got this life of yours in My capable hands.”

And with that calm voice in my soul, my perspective changes.  Oh friends, we both know things may (and most likely will) continue to be “off” today in my own little world; but that is okay.  In the words of my friend Elizabeth Dyer who wrote today’s devotional over at A Widow’s Might: 

"Is it possible to be in the Spirit while I am where I do not want to be?  Is it possible for me to be in the Spirit while my life appears to be unraveling? When my world is spinning out of my control? Is it possible?”   

Yes, it is.  Just as John was “in the Spirit” on the island of Patmos (Revelation 1), I can be in His Spirit in my silly, inconvenient (often self-imposed) messes.

Sometimes the loneliness of doing this life without a partner overwhelms me.  Grief sweeps in and swirls its ugliness all over my heart and invades my mind.  I am learning to let it come, this grief.  I keep my eyes on the One who holds me, and I teach the grief where its boundaries will be in my life.  I will not give it the power to take my focus off my God.

So that’s where you can find me today.  In His Spirit; which is right where He intends for me to be, in the fruit-in-fridge, geisha-faced, overcooked-chicken, muddy center of my life.

~Lori