The upward battle

This week I am weary from the upward battle I am fighting in so many areas of my life. I have been feeing the affects of this walk up this hill for a while but this week I have needed a break.

From grief, injustice (in general in life because my personality values that so much), relationships (both good and not so good or forced), work frustrations, to even the simplest of things that should cause me joy like gardening, nothing is happening without a fight.  Not that I expect everything to be great, its hard when you are in the middle of something so consuming and so important like grief to understand or juggle the other crap of life with a good attitude. I shouldn't have to work at getting a tiller to borrow.  I shouldn't have to feel forced to relate to people in a certain way but should be able to connect with people naturally. Relationships with people should be out of caring for one another not governed by expectations.

I managed to make it to Thursday.  I say make it because that is how it feels.  I am making it.  And so most of the time I feel like checking out.  My intentionality in the way that I love and serve others has
been work, instead of something that naturally flows out of who I am during this season.  I know it is why I take it more personally when what I can give (in all of the areas of my life) is not enough or if the effort that it takes for me to be present in other areas of my life is not acknowledged but taken advantage of.

I think its that point in the grief process that people have moved on while your still stuck right where you were 3 months ago when your world changed forever. People still ask how you are, but they ask in the simplest form of that phrase not out of really wondering if you are doing okay with the loss that you are inevitably still working through.

God sees me in my grief.  He really sees me. And when I want to give up he reminds me that I am not alone.  And for my not so healthy coping skill of checking out, he shows me love through someone tangible.

God's grace and love today is my wonderful friend and co-worker who gave me a hug.  Not that I communicated I needed a hug but because she felt the heavy heart I have been caring with me.
 She let me cry without expecting an explanation. And when I described the upward battle she responded with, "I will sit with you on this hill".  She will sit on the rock that's on the path up this hill mountain  that I am climbing and she will love me even in my ugliness and sadness.  She is allowing me to sit in my sadness and not have any expectations to keep going or give her anything.

 And for this, I am ever so grateful and thankful. Because like everyone else in the world, I am a mess.  Its just at this point in my life my mess feels like its seeping out of every crack of my life.  And its ugly.  Its disappointing. Its hard. And yet I am loved.