Today is one of those days when I feel like I’m running on empty. Just like a car, if we don’t refuel it, it will run out of gas and be of no use. So what do we do when our car is empty? We take it to the gas station and fill it up.
Well today I’m on empty, the challenges and responsibilities of life have left me empty. It seems there’s never a reprieve, a time when I can just breathe.
With Mom’s passing, time as not healed my wounds. It seems the more time passes the more I miss her and the reality hits me that she’s no longer with me. The telephone calls every day have ended, just hearing her voice is gone. So I call out to God; be my comfort today.
I’m guessing that most people wouldn’t admit to having a down day. And that’s okay, but for me I like to be real and by doing so to help others. We live in such a world that expects perfection, a ‘me’ society, a cookie cutter mentality of what we are supposed to feel, think and act. I guess I was never drawn into that way of thinking. I am who I am, nothing or no one more, just me. Sometimes maybe it would have been easier if I just went along with the status quo. But I didn’t always chose the path most travelled. Many times I made my own path, I found my own way.
Living with a mental illness can so easily drain you to a point of exhaustion. Every day is a struggle, some less then others. But lots of days I feel like I’m running on empty. Many days I just have to stop and refuel, to breathe.
And then there’s a caregivers life; that means 24/7, 365 days year. I’m not complaining; I would do it all over again if I had to. But I can’t say it’s an easy life, it’s tough, challenging, isolating and exhausting. I love Lauren more then life itself and that’s why I gave up my own life for her. But what I gained was far above anything I could ever imagine. John 15:13 says, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends”(his daughter, his family).
So it’s those days when I’m running on empty, when it seems humanly impossible to keep going. But it’s those days that I have learned to look to an higher power. To a strength that is not my own, to a God that is in the driver’s seat of my car. I’ve been singing this song all morning and it sums up what I’m trying to say. The words of the song are “my” words, my prayer for today. He is faithful!
Like the woman at the well I was seeking, for things that could not satisfy. And then I heard my Saviour speaking, “Draw from My well that never shall run dry”.
Fill my cup, Lord. I lift it up, Lord. Come and quench this thirsting if my soul. Bread of Heaven, feed me ‘til I want no more. Fill my cup, fill it up and make me whole.
There are millions in this world who are craving the pleasures, earthly things of gold. But none can match the wondrous treasure that I find in Jesus Christ my Lord.