I Am Tired.

Have you ever been tired? I’m not talking about the physical tired. I’m talking about the mental and emotional exhaustion. Life is exhausting. My husband, children, and I have been dragged through the ringer this past year, and we are tired. Not so much physically, although that’s not usually lacking in exhaustion either, but more so the mental and emotional exhaustion. Right now, we are to the point of breaking. We have had enough. We are at the bottom of the barrel in so many ways. I thought we had hit bottom before. And maybe we had, but that was a different time in our life so maybe bottom was different then too. This is the worst it has ever been.

On a side note, have you ever thought that things couldn’t get any worse? Well, don’t think that because they probably will get worse then. Maybe I’m a tad superstitious about that type of thing, but I don’t want to tempt Murphy’s Law. I really have a passionate disdain for Murphy. He needs to just disappear.

Anyway, if you have ever just been tired, I understand. I think a lot of people try to put on a good face and fake their way through being tired. I’ve been there too. I still do that at times. But one thing I have started to understand is that it happens to EVERYONE. I always used to think that everyone else had their life on track and doing the things they wanted and needed to do. As I get older, I’m realizing the opposite is usually true. I’m starting to think NO ONE has their life on track and figured out. Everyone has issues of some sort. No one is immune. It doesn’t matter how much a person plans and organizes, life will still through a curve ball for strike three. Every. Single. Time.

God has this funny way of bringing things to mind when I least expect them but need them most. Every time things happen that frustrate and depress me, one thing pops into my head. An old hymn called “Count Your Blessings.” There was a time in my life that I struggled terribly with depression. It was to the point of either quitting my job or going on happy pills. God took care of that situation too, but that’s a different story. The reason “Count Your Blessings” comes to my mind is because of my husband. During my depressed time of life, he stood by me and helped me through it. He bought me a package of notecards and told me to write three things down each day that I was thankful for. He also made it very clear that I could not just copy the card from the day before. Every day I would sit down to write out those cards. I was not a fan at first. I didn’t want to even think about the good stuff because I felt like the bad would just engulf the good if I brought the good to light. But as it turns out, writing those out each day helped immensely. I don’t think I even realized how much it was helping until a few months later. It taught me that it could always be worse, and that I had way more to be thankful for than I had things to be depressed about. I love how spouses balance each other out. Phil and I still have our down times, but it almost always ends up that one of us is down while the other is having a good day. I’m thankful for that. That grows us even closer together and helps to keep us stable. We lean on each other when we need it most. Some days are easier than others, but it’s not always that way. Marriage is work, but it’s rewarding work.

I could go down so many rabbit trails while being on this topic, but I’m trying to stay on my original point. Being tired was my original point. Is it wrong to be tired? The short answer to that is NO. Is it wrong to have a bad attitude while being tired? The short answer to that is YES. I am the most guilty one on this point. If I get tired, I get crabby. I have a bad attitude when I’m tired. It is definitely something that I need to work on and change. I can’t fix it by myself. I need God to take care of that. I simply need to follow his leading and be willing to change my heart. That is unbelievably hard for me to do. I’m human just like each of you. We each have our problems and heart issues. The only thing that matters is that we need to be willing to let God do His work in us. It doesn’t matter if we are depressed and on happy pills or if we are on the mountaintop. God has to be the one to either pick us up and put us on the mountaintop or help us to stay there. Depression is not something to mess with or take lightly. Each person at some point or another will have some level of depression, but we don’t have to stay there. That is not how God created us. He wants us to be happy. That doesn’t mean that everything is always going to go our way, but it does mean that we will be able to find the good in the bad. If we are looking to God when things get hard, He will show us that glimmer of hope, no matter how small it may be. All we need to do is follow and look. It’s definitely harder than it sounds, but it’s doable. God helps us handle everything we are given. We just need to be willing to let go of the situation(s), and let God take care of it and take care of us.