The Key to Surviving This Crazy Life

Life is a lot. Too much sometimes.

In a two-and-a-half month span of time I will have gone from having three children in Washington State to zero. I’ve lived my entire life in a five-mile radius of the same town my parents grew up in. I know the back roads, the places to hike, the restaurants to eat at. My kids were born here. We’ve made memories. So many memories. I fully anticipated holidays at home with my adult children coming over and growing old here and having my grandkids living just down the road. Now that plan is changing. My kids are choosing paths I didn’t anticipate.

The water line to my fridge ice maker exploded while Jesse and I were at work and flooded our house. An inch of water in my kitchen, dining room, laundry room, living room, and entryway was an unexpected surprise. Now my floors are ripped up and we’re walking around in flip flops on top of brown paper Jesse stapled down. Carpet cleaning was scheduled for the week after the flood, but what’s the point? The carpets would no doubt get dirty from the floor construction project, so I cancelled. My college student’s entire apartment is boxed up, sitting on my front patio. It was going to be moved into the house after the carpets were cleaned. Now it still sits out there. I’m living in a hoarding construction zone nightmare. I cannot express how grateful I am however that the industrial fans are gone. Those are enough to drive a person mad.

Amidst the flooring tear-out, we discovered a sewer line under our house was failing. Food, not poop, but holy moly was it disgusting. Black water. Stench. Thousands of larva of some kind of tiny fly thing.

Abby, my elderly Doodle partially ripped her dewclaw off, warranting an expensive trip to the vet.

My hair is crazy. My face is breaking out. I woke up with a dang stye in my eye.

And suddenly Father’s Day is upon us. And my dad died and I miss him so much.

I’ve been anxious. Thoughts racing. Focus poor. Decisions extremely difficult to make. And I’m depressed. I don’t want to leave my house. The last couple of days, I was really wondering WHY I’m feeling the way I’ve been feeling. Then I write it all out and think DUH!! Life has really been coming at me. It’s too much.

A few years ago, I took a month off of work, a sabbatical if you will. My plan was to work on my writing and to pursue an encounter with God. I had hopeful expectation that He would show up in a certain way, and to help me understand why my dad died. He didn’t. He invited me in to a space I had not anticipated. I found peace and intimacy I didn’t know existed. I learned in those days that my spiritual tank was empty because I didn’t REALLY put God first. I may have talked the talk, but I wasn’t walking the walk. He frankly wasn’t a priority. I know people close to me that have given up on Jesus because ‘it just didn’t work’ for them. I see now that in order for ‘it’ to work, you can’t sit on the throne of your life… Jesus doesn’t share. He’s not a genie to grant you your every wish no matter how noble your wish is. He doesn’t owe you an explanation to anything. It’s not a relationship of equals… He is literally God and we are His creation. Life is hard. I am so happy that I have a faith that puts my life in Jesus’ hands rather than me in control. My perspective is so limited. He sees the whole picture. He knows my past, and my future. Someone that hasn’t experienced what I experienced cannot possibly understand what I am saying. It’s not easy to relinquish control of your own life and trust when you don’t understand; I get it. It’s much easier to keep grasping for control, even when it damages you and the people you love. Maybe it’s like a child that begs to stay with an abusive parent when CPS comes to take them away. I’m starting to preach. Time to move on.

Our church is doing a new series on Abiding and focusing on some key spiritual disciplines (or practices). The first week was about meditation. During my sabbatical, I learned to meditate. Not New Age meditation that is so sadly prevalent today. But Biblical meditation; detaching from the chaos of the world, and reattaching to the Trinity of the Holy Spirit, Jesus, and the God of the universe.

I found peace and intimacy with God through meditation while I was deeply grieving the death of my dad. All these obstacles I have been facing for the last month pale in the light of the loss of my dad. If I can find peace during my grief by meditating and focusing on God… Surely I can find peace now.

In reality, my mental health is not unstable because my kids are moving away and my house is falling apart… it’s because my focus has become those things and not my God, my Comforter, my Creator.

Detaching myself will give me temporary relief from life’s chaos, but it is only in attaching myself to He who is my all in all that I transcend the craziness and live life to its fullest.

Satan need not show up in person in his red cape and horns, he only needs to dangle shiny distractions and offer a full calendar for me to sever the intimacy available with God. How sad and juvenile that I still fall for those tricks. Thank goodness for grace and do-overs… everyday.

Cheers to starting afresh, with eyes focused above the waves.