Sliver of hope
We went to the beach yesterday. Started our day early to catch high tide so Sam and the olders could snorkel.
On the shore, the youngers and I played, built castles, chased fish, and searched for treasures in the sand.
We all regrouped after a couple of hours.
Three of the girls ventured into the depths, looking for fish and sea cucumbers. They were splashing, laughing, and floating around without a care.
Jules toodled into the water and stopped. She screamed at the others to come back and play with her where she was. The others told her to swim out to them to play. Jules continued screaming and crying that she wanted them to come to her. The others declined and continued to play.
Juliet hunched her shoulders and audibly sulked. She never did venture deeper.
Juliet can swim. And it wasn't too deep.
She didn't get her way. She was unwilling to budge.
Her perceived loss of control and her inflexible attitude led her to miss out on bonding with her sisters and exploring more of the beach and water that she hadn't before.
She was angry and frustrated that her sisters wouldn't do what she wanted. She wanted things on her terms. Fun on her terms and others to do as she bade. She threw a tantrum when things didn't go the way she wanted.
I saw myself hunched over, head hung low, thigh deep in sea water. I saw myself in her anger and her frustration. I saw the obvious tantrum and saw my own internal struggle.
Like Jules at the beach, my body doesn't do what I want it to. I am not in control. I want things on my own terms and I lash out when things don't go the way I envision.
The day at the beach drew out of me a buried struggle, one I had thought was drowned enough not to resurface. One I had thought was dead enough to never be resuscitated.
My past would reveal a trip to a woman's health clinic to meet with a nurse, set up by my mom. Around 11 years old, I had confided in her that I hated how I looked and wanted to be skinny. She made the call and the appointment day came. I went alone with the nurse and sat down to talk to her. She wrote out on a piece of paper things for me to avoid: pizza, ice cream, potato chips, cheeseburgers, pop. I cherished that piece of paper as if it were a diamond to adorn my natural beauty, as if it were the magic words to heal all that ailed me.
Twenty five years later, my health is the worst it has ever been. That piece of paper did not help. It did not make me dazzle or sparkle or heal me.
Of course, I am a different person than I was. Time has produced new challenges for me and humbled me in many ways. The habits I turn to when stressed, the daily diet I choose, the level of activity in which I engage. I am still learning to balance and temper, of sacrificing myself in childraising and yet maintaining who I am under the layers of motherhood. Of making time for myself. Of making wise choices with the resources I do have.
I wrestle myself daily and remain in a cycle that does not end.
Disappointment after disappointment layer themselves between my self pity and lack of motivation.
I wake in oppressive mourning for who I want to be and what I have become.
Little things offer slight salve to my quiet struggle. I remind myself that I can take my problems to God. Yet, I don't hear or see a difference. I struggle with the balance of faith and action, of what is the Holy Spirit's role and what is my personal role. What I need to do and what I don't.
Sometimes, it feels as if I am talking to the nothing and to no one, as if there is no one on the other end of my prayer. Still, I am reminded of many times that David searched for and felt a distance from Him. There are times that our feelings betray us and we must rely on the firm truth that God has never left us or forsaken us. We are told to come to Jesus and who will bear our burdens.
This burden is unbearable at times. And I buckle under the weight of it daily.
What does it mean to give it to God? What does it mean actually and practically to let go and let God? What does it mean to trust God? To hope that things will get better and forget about it? The struggle is within myself, the state I was born and the state I was born into. Flesh versus spiritual. So often, my flesh wins. It is exhausting and frustrating.
The bitterness I feel toward myself creeps into all of my outward expressions of self. The quiet moments spent in front of the sink washing dishes. The soap in the laundry, round and round, out to the dryer and deliver to beds. Trying on clothes and being defeated by the mirror. Wearing certain clothes because they hide imperfections. Sulking when I feel like a failure.
Victory over my issues may very well be a moment by moment win. Victory may not be the euphoric step over the marathon finish line. From the outside, it may not look like it is anything at all. Just another day to any passerby. Victory may very well be a quiet submission to God in the unknown future and resting in the invisible presence of the Holy Spirit within. It may very well mean that I yield my feelings and choose to meditate on scripture. It may mean saying no. It may also mean giving myself room to make mistakes and forgive myself when they happen without giving up. Perseverance through pain.
I find myself clinging to Psalm 61.
Hear my cry, O God; attend unto my prayer.
From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed:
lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
We left the beach exhausted. The heat and sun draining energy and high spirits. Salt curing our skin and sticking to the car seats. Even a day later, I still feel the waves of emotion and grief and loss, the hopeless frustration waxing, waning. In and out. I know I have a long way to go. But day by day, may there be victory. I maintain hope, even the slightest shred, a small sliver of light breaking into a dark room, that I will yet be victorious.
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