Sleepless nights

It is 6:18 a.m., and I have not slept. This will be a night without any sleep at all. That's just the way it's going to be tonight, I guess. Too many thoughts swimming around my head.

I wish there was a way to make flowery prose out of the things going on up there, but honestly, this week has been pretty painful. I have spent time this week really missing my babies. I have uncovered parts of my story that were more painful than I realized - parts that I had sugar coated. I have discovered parts of myself that were downright ugly....and the ugly showed. I have found myself embracing fear more often than the pursuit of growth. I got a little stuck, really.

This is all very frustrating to me because I have worked so hard to grow past the ugly parts. I have devoted so much time and attention to figuring out just which parts of me were broken and then even greater amounts of time figuring out how to fix them only to realize that the work I had done was really incomplete. Very discouraging. Lots of feeling the sentiment of one step forward, two steps back. I have encountered many moments of hopelessness and self pity.....but then a thought struck me.

I don't get to quit. Quitting would mean that all of this would be wasted, and I.......I am just not willing to settle for that. When I have had opportunity to share my story, after I am finished, I nearly always find the listener sitting slack jawed or shaking their head. The details and the sheer volume of stories that I have to offer does provoke a little....shock. There's been a lot - not more than any other person alive and really not more than most but there really has been a lot.....and I survived. Every time a new struggle has found its way into my journey, the temptation to throw up my hands and run away screaming has definitely presented itself, but then something in my brain would just say "No. Not yet. Don't quit yet. This is not over. You are not over." There's never been a promise of convention to come. Just the knowing that I'm not supposed to quit. I am NOT supposed to give up.

I don't know what my future is going to hold. I know for a fact that there will be more pain, but I know I can't quit. Don't get me wrong. I am tired. I am tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop. I am tired of waiting for the next attack, and I am tired of being stuck in the middle of an existing one. I am tired of character building challenges. I am just exhausted. I remember when my oldest child was tiny praying "God, just please give me ONE normal year.....just one...then things can be hard again. I just need one year of normal." Well, that was when she was a baby, and she's about to turn 9. I'm still waiting. I don't even know what the "normal" for which I was asking even looks like anymore. That dream is so hazy now. I'm no longer even praying for "normal". This has depleted me quite a bit....but something in me always ends up thrusting my fist up through the rubble of these tragedies Weeks like these, though, leave me very tired, indeed.

Sometimes I imagine myself as an old lady looking back at the whole story of my life. I imagine myself in a place of quiet and rest and satisfaction. It feels like some sort of hopeful premonition that one day, the fighting my way though life will be over - that I will just get to enjoy and be a funny old lady that says inappropriate things and gives hugs and makes people smile. But when I have these imaginings, I am always elderly. My life on earth is always near its end. I am nowhere in the middle of my journey.

Parts of me want to celebrate that. There have been times in recent years that I have watched while God showered me with every last thing that I needed and then some. It sounds hokey if you don't know it, but I have no other way to explain it. These moments have always occurred after something terrible has happened or I have been provided rescue when there was nothing before me but impending tragedy. This inspired me to pray "Okay, God. I feel loved. I KNOW that you're paying attention to me, and I now have a way to share that love with other people. You have stretched me and grown me and given me more ways to know how to love other people. PLEASE don't ever let me find myself in a place where I am less aware of what you can do - where I can't hear your voice this well or see your hand this clearly." There have been times when I made strong, difficult decisions for myself and those around me, and that tended to bear good fruit, but there have been way more times than I can count that things have been bestowed on me for which I did not ask or seek out. They were orchestrated in the song of my story in ways that cannot be explained except by the divine. I did not do this alone.

Maybe that is why I can't quit. I got hope. I was given hope. This experience is not futile. I am actively seeking truth and growth voraciously. I have been given enough that I KNOW there can be good, and I want more. I am truly greedy for the good. Life has barely whetted my appetite for the good, and I am greedy for it now. I am in a place where, though the pain is still so so real and so so strong, I am determined to get more of the good. I know I will achieve justice. I know I will have good success. I know I will have wholeness. I have no idea when I will get any of those in their complete forms, but there is something in me that knows that they will be mine to have. I will not be satisfied until I've gotten those things.

So, hey life, bring it on. Hit me with your best shot. I'm waiting. I may not be ready for you. You will most probably knock me on my hiney, but as I feel every bit of pain from the blows you deliver, I will remember that it's only temporary. You'll stop hitting after a while. Then, I will wipe the bloody nose of my spirit, and I will dust off my knees, and I will take ONE STEP. I'm going to do that just one time, and then I'm going to concentrate on doing it again.....and again and again and again. You'll keep punching over the course of time, but, darn it, I will keep wiping away the blood, and I will keep stepping because one day....one day I'm going to get to have everything that I've ever sought. I'm claiming it. It's mine already. I'm just still on my way, but it's going to be mine. One day...I AM going to get to be that goofy old lady. One day, I'm going to be able to rest. One day, I'm going to be satisfied. One day, it's going to be mine.