I'm exhausted.   Mentally.  Emotionally.

Life hit me with so many blows from Thanskgiving until now.  Some things were really tough, but not everything was so hard.  It's just that each thing added up over time.  I didn't realize just how affected I was until yesterday when my parents left at dawn after a long visit with us.  It was finally just our family and no holiday busyness. I would have thought that would motivate me to get started on the new year, but instead the weight of the weeks finally took their toll.  

Yesterday morning, after I crawled out of bed, I found a note in my mother's handwriting:

"I woke up this morning with Grandpa's verse going around in my head,

'Behold I will do a new thing, Shall Ye not know it? 

I will make a way in the wilderness; rivers in the desert.'

Isaiah 43, I think.  I love you most, Mom"

It doesn't take something "major" to empty our cups.  I recently read a journal entry from 2003 when I sounded utterly exhausted with a new baby and a 7yo, 5yo and 3yo underfoot.  My cup needed filled then, as it does now.  This is an ongoing part of life.

Missionary friends wrote the following in their recent prayer letter:

"What a blessing that even in the whirl of our lives, God's Word keeps our eyes and hearts focused on the never changing Truth that brings consistency to our often upside down world.
 
"The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart;

and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit."  Psm 34:18