I HEAR VOICES...
I've run out of steam.
There I said it.
We barely survived the past two years. Four kids, two of them in the form of infant twins. One God-awful promotion ripping my husband away from the house 70 hours a week when the babes were just 8 weeks old. I often felt like a single mom to the whole universe during those first few sleepless months. My career, Thank the Lord, is flexible but non-the-less stressful and demanding. Who would've thought I'd be lactating at 39 years old.
I won't even go further into the added stress. Because I'm just not there yet. But when I tell you this past year nearly broke me. It pretty much broke me.
Think of your worse season and topple it with a twin pregnancy and 2 other kids, who all of the sudden felt entirely neglected. I could not WIN with anyone in this household.
It left James and I quite battered and bruised. Individually and together as a couple.
The harder life seemed to get, the more I found myself hearing two separate voices running on repeat through my head. No not like the crazy person type of voices. Just two little completely opposite set of thoughts that day after day seemed to be a constant friend. Boy do they fight each other and 100% of the time give me opposite advice.
The LOUDER voice shouts repeatedly. Over and OVER. Louder and LOUDER.
Things would NEVER change. It will ALWAYS be this hard. Your needs, Carla will constantly be in the back burner. It's not worth it.
And the softer voice whispers so quietly that I have to bend my ear to hear it. It often speaks once, maybe twice. I strain to hear it through the noise. Do you want to be right or in obedience to me? Do you want to give me your disappointments or hold them tightly to your chest? This voice so faint that I have to make the choice to turn off the noise around me in order to even hear it. God often speaks so quietly to me that all noise has to be intentionally turned off.
I think we often hear two voices--really thoughts that run rampant. Some are calculating and conniving and spin us emotionally faster out of control than the craziest merry-go-round. We unravel. We react. We loose our cool and damage relationships. Other thoughts set us straight and calm our nerves. These thoughts are the one's that give us peace and help me to slow my roll. The random sudden thought that gives peace really is the voice of God whispering to my spirit. My response is slower, my need to "be right" falls to the waste side.
It took a lot for me to stop saying over and over that I have run out of steam to keep pushing through the hard. The hard in my marriage. The hard in the every day. The hard that life has thrown at us. I have a phrase that I use to help reset my mind and heart.
But God...
But God can. But God will. But God is...working all things for my good.
And it's in the hard that my focus, thoughts and voices need to be carefully monitored. It's in the hard that I change from the inside out the fastest.
We always have a choice. That is my reminder for today. I have a choice of who I listen to and how I perceive my circumstances. I have a choice to follow and obey God or let my temporary feelings rule my heart and mind. I can recognize in the moment of HARD that I don't really like it, prefer it or want to be there BUT oooh do I crave the change it brings. Like that soul healing kind of change. Where less bothers you. Less people steal your peace and the world (or husband) no longer dictates your mood.
Because God and hard will always outweigh fast, self centered and easy. Feelings fade and change sometimes by the minute. But God's Truth always remains the same, pointing me back to a re-newed energy and patience. I still have no steam left. Yup that is correct NONE. But GOD has an endless supply of steam. So as I still sit here and wrestle with the two voices. Good and bad. Peace or turmoil...I know what I am to do, I call on God's name to show up and speak up in the quietness of my mind and perform only what He can perform. A re-newed strength to carry on.
"The voice of a stranger they will not follow." John 5:10
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