Feeling blue

Sometimes things seem so utterly out of control that I wonder if anyone really knows what they're doing or where they're going.   I know I'm just barely keeping my nose above water in a stormy sea.

I guess God permits us to witness our own weakness so we stay humble.  By the time all is said and done, I might just get an 'A' on that test.

My life is a wreck.  I'm just not gonna even try to sugarcoat it.  Every layer of my life needs attention and I can't do it.  I cannot find a way.   

 Take my prayer life...it's all over the place.  Most of the time, it is a rushed, 'Hi Lord.'  I can honestly be so 'lukewarm' in my faith that I know He's ready to spit me out like a bad apple.  I want to care but I can't always muster up the right attitude.  It feels like I'm bogged down by the weight of indifference.  I hate feeling that way.  I detest it when I am  numb and unfeeling.

I feel very much crushed beneath the insurmountable duties of my life.  Each morning when I awaken, there is a new mess to clean up.  When the kids were small, I had so much more control over my environment than I do now.  Wherever they go, they leave a trail of various messes behind them.  It doesn't help to confide this in others. I've tried that, hoping for a sympathetic understanding, but have only received some sort of condemnation for not being a better teacher to them.  I wasn't hard enough on them.  I didn't teach them right.  On and on...

The bottom line is, it must somehow be my fault.  I've failed in that area.

I cannot keep up with things.  Several days a week, I wash clothes.  It seems like I never do.  There is a neverending overflow of clothes in the hamper and in baskets in the kitchen.  I do not have a laundry area, so it all ends up in the kitchen.  Clean clothes pile up on the dryer because my older kids 'forget' to put their stuff away. 

My house annoys me.  I hate admitting this out loud because it seems like I am ungrateful. One thing I cannot stand is ingratitude.  This house is ugly.  It has no room.  There is no place to put anything.  I have half the kitchen cupboard space that I need.  The paint is peeling.  The front door is ready to fall off its hinges.  Our spouting is hanging off.  The bedrooms are smaller than some people's walk in closets.  And we have almost no closets.  The kids' stuff is everywhere.  They have nowhere to keep it, so it migrates onto the dining room table and into every nook and corner.  I don't feel like I can do anything to change it.  It feels impossible. 

I've tried.  And tried.  I never get on top of it.  I can't even get alongside it.  I'm under it and I can't find an air pocket.  I see why Jesus told his disciples to get ride of their stuff.  I wish I could.  But most of it isn't mine.

My schedule is hectic and crazy.  Everyday I am in and out of the van, dropping someone off, picking someone up.  None of my kids has a license yet.  Two of them are working on it, but that won't solve anything anyway.  They cannot afford insurance, and I can't pay for them.  And they won't have a vehicle of their own to drive anyway. 

I fell asleep yesterday and wasn't at school to pick up my third grader, who happens to be a 'worrywart'.  She worries all the time that I won't be there, that something will happen to me, etc.  So, what do I do?  I do the worst thing I could do...now when I promise that I'll be there, she most likely won't be able to believe me now.  She had doubts before, and I had given her no reason for those doubts.

I know this funk will pass.  I've done this a million times before.  I really have a blessed life, and yet, I have these down times.  I have a family that I love with all my heart; that is my biggest blessing.  And I know that God understands me, even if no one else does.  He isn't as hard on me as I am on myself.  Right now, all I want to do is sleep and maybe even cry.  But, I don't think I can muster up tears because I'm just too tired...