Crumpling under stress

Have you ever just crumpled?

Had too much? On your plate, in your life? Just felt like the weight of the world was sitting on you and you didn't know what to why or when or where?

Yesterday Africa and Asia landed on my shoulders.

Came in the form of a letter, but the weight was substantial none-the-less. I have jury duty beginning Monday morning at 7:45 a.m., the letter said. That means I must leave my home at 6 a.m. That means I must be up by 5 if I'm to write these things, read scripture and walk. That means....ughhhhgghhhgghhghghghghgh.

This comes on top of my mother's situation (ill, awaiting word on what and how and where and when), my work (I am the only one who actually does my job, there isn't a backup), my church (I am the only one who actually does my job, there isn't a backup) and the assorted normal bills, kids, bills and kids.

So I took all this and used the training and the patience I have obtained over time in the ministry and through my studies.

I freaked, in other words.

I've said it before but life is a pressure-cooker and we're the green beans. This is just what happens. We are beaten down and beaten up by what life presents us. We can talk about all the giving the burdens over to God we want, but when it all comes down, we get over-burdened sometimes.

We think we have control, we tell ourselves we have control, we act like we think we have control, but we need reminders from time to time that no indeed we do not. And that is the experience of giving the burdens to the one who can handle them.
I

needed, yesterday and probably many days before that, a moment where I understood once again for the millionth time that I am not the center of my own universe and I can not handle everything, every single little thing, that is thrown my way. I needed a God check, like a blood pressure-check. This is when God is wrapped around my life and the pressure is checked. If God is involved properly, the pressure is low. If my arteries are clogged with worry and a glob of fear, the pressure builds and builds. It is not a heart attack I have, then, but instead it is a letting go of God attack.

In other words, when the pressures build (naturally and normally), I can let God open the ways to my heart or I can let the pressure build.

I have to be reminded this, apparently, fairly often.

Jesus said his yoke is easy.

I forget.

So yesterday I just shut it down. I didn't move. I didn't struggle, because I couldn't...I just didn't have the energy or the wherewithal. Mary had a headache, I had a heartache, and the world stopped.

But God has let taken the cap off, the pressure is shrinking, I'll learn to get up way before dawn and I'll get through this period. Until the next time, when I pray I will remember Him earlier.