Let me start off by saying that every day is a new day, and today I wish my new day were already here! I would love to close my eyes, and open them and it would, like magic, be tomorrow. While I am not prone to feelings of sadness, or being overwhelmed, today my heart breaks. Each time I think about the overall big picture, my eyes tear up. On the rare occasion that I struggle with feelings of inadequacy, sadness or discouragement, I can usually shake it by engaging with others, sharing the moment, making light of the situation, or even just mentally stepping over it without a glance backwards again.
Many times people misconstrue my ability to shake things off, for being un attached emotionally, or lacking in mercy or compassion. Most times I would tend to agree that I am not overly compassionate, I have a low tolerance for stupid, and I often forget to filter things through my lens of mercy and grace. (If you know me well your not surprised by this.) If you don't know me, you then know someone like me. I just do not like to get bogged down in the day to day drama of life. Things happen, consequences ensue, and life goes on, reliving it, rehashing it typically changes nothing, so learn your lesson, and move on, is typically my motto.
But today, I am stuck in a rut. This rut is not new. According to the Prince, I am inflicting this rut upon my self for not heeding his wisdom, and for not being able to disengage from the situation. He feels that I am taking things personally, and am not separating myself from my emotions. I agree. I do take this personally because I think that in life there are prompts from the Lord, that encourage us to be invested in something or someone, to step out on a ledge, and to push for a desired result or return on our investment. However, in this there has to be a balance. There are in all situations life lessons to be learnt, and while you can lead a horse to water, whether he drinks or not is his choice. But just because your horse is too stubborn or prideful to drink, do you stop trying?
In this particular instance I have committed years of my life to journeying beside these particular horses. This horse has drug me to the bottom or my emotional well, sapped my finances, sapped my energy, sapped my disposition, even has sapped my joy for the moment and has inflicted on me pain so deep that I can not with ease put words to why I even feel this way. The totality of where I am today emotionally has not happened because of one ill spoken phrase, one out burst of uncontrolled anger, or a justifiable argument, but out of a pent up, built up, preverbal elephant in the room. My frustration is out of my concern that we are not assisting the horse in learning life lessons that are true, that we are enabling the horse to get a perspective that is viewed through their lens of laziness, anger, resentment and lack of trust. By not leading said horse to the water of accountability and forcing structure and social graces on them, am I not setting them up for as much failure as if they were to go alone down the road of life without input and knowledge shared because of the love that we have for them?
Or in all this is the Prince right. (Just a side note on this, the Prince's profession as a counselor makes it most probable that he is right, again...) Are my personal views of the situation just mudding the drinking water. Clearly in walking away, I will feel like I have failed. I know that is my pride, but the lingering nagging inner voice says while pride would be patting its self on it's back if the situation were miraculously fixed, I know in my heart that if the situation changed, I would give praise to the Lord for stepping in and fixing the cracks in my broken pot and I would thank Him for selecting me to be part of the restoration process.
In stepping back and disengaging, I feel useless. Like watching an accident unfold in front of you and knowing that you can not get there fast enough to be part of the solution, or to keep the accident from happening. In the back of my mind I am struggling with the reality of, if I can, after the accident happens, and the horse is ready to drink, have the heart and the courage and the strength to go back out on the same limb again.
As a young woman, I never wanted children so I know that the Lord has called me to be a mom of many, and many of them with special needs. Needs that require more skills, more grace, more mercy, more compassion than I have. Hence, why the Prince and I make such a great pair... the helplessness that I feel today in the task ahead is substantially overwhelming, heartbreaking and frustrating.
Prayers are welcome on behalf of our horses that won't drink, and for their parents that struggle with the right way to guide them, for their success or their failure(which I can not own as my own), as we attempt to set them up for life on their own, outside the comfort and protection of our home. I would be foolish to think that this will go away, ever. In the midst of this particular moment in time, in my head I know that grace and mercy will prevail. In my heart I hurt. In my hurt I am rejoicing that it has taken so many years to get to this low point. I also trust that it is a small blip on the radar, this is not a camp that I desire to stay in. I know that I must dig deep, set aside my inadequacies, continue to trust that God's got all this and so much more. His desire is ultimately for them to drink from the water, to be refreshed, renewed, and restored. His plans for them are even bigger than the ones that I envision for them. For which I am grateful. Even now, tears still are brimming, but peace is blossoming.
Some days, I wish I could make this stuff up...
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