Overwhelmed

Being overwhelmed is nothing new to me. A friend once told me, "You are the most overwhelmed person I know." That was probably fifteen or sixteen years ago, when the overwhelmedness mostly centered on small children who kept me up at night and smeared various substances all over my walls and floors during the day.

Now the small children have all grown to be bigger than I. And so have their issues.

Let me backtrack. I believe that I have some of the greatest kids on earth. They bring me joy beyond what I had dreamed possible. However, when you love deeply, you also hurt deeply when things go wrong. And you feel deeply when things are uncertain. And you just tend to worry more, even though you aren't supposed to worry, you are supposed to trust God.

There is a verse in 1 John that says, "Perfect love drives out fear." I am not exactly sure what this means. It seems like, as a mom, the more I love, the more I fear... I fear that they will experience pain and disappointment. I fear for my own potential losses. I doubt that this is what the verse is about. It probably has more to do with the love of God, although the book itself (1 John) is about how we need to exhibit God's love in our own lives. It's just something I've never understood, and something that makes me feel overwhelmed, guilty and inadequate when I worry about my kids.

And my husband. I worry about him, too. These days it seems like everybody close to me has a big need of prayer. The other night I was trying to pray and sleep, all through the night. I couldn't sleep, so I would pray. Then I would fall asleep, and wake up a bit later feeling guilty that I had not prayed through everyone's issues. That spurred me on to pray some more, which led me to fall asleep again, but by the end of the night I am pretty sure I had gotten to each one of them. I woke up in the morning and I actually felt a certain sense of peace, until I started thinking about it all again.

God is in control. God IS in control. This is the truth and besides that, He has a plan and a purpose for each one of us. It has just been hard for me to rest in that truth lately.

There was an old song that went, "It's me, it's me, Oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer..." I am the one without a specific issue right now (except that I need a paying job, and don't really want one). But I think I might be needing as much prayer as any of us.