Finally, A Time of Refreshing

Jeremiah 31:25  “I will refresh the weary and satisfy the faint.”

THIS verse could be the theme for this week. Honestly, parts of this year have been the hardest of my life, to date. Not in the sense of grief and pain. The second and third year after my husband was killed are still top for that. But this year has been debilitatingly exhausting.

It started with a major job change, so I thought it was just the exhaustion of a new job, a new IN OFFICE job, and learning a new skill set. Then at the three month mark, I received a major responsibility promotion that led to another three months of intensity. Then in July, Zoya spent two weeks in Franklin and I came home everyday at 5 and laid in bed until it was time to go back to work in the morning.

I thought that was just a temporary response to intense work and finally having the space to rest, but the extreme exhaustion hasn’t ended.

I was finally hoping to rest and restore on Labor Day weekend and I ended up with some stomach issues and again, even while staying in an idyllic vacation spot, I could not get out of bed.

Since then, I’ve been okay moving my daughter from activity to activity, but if I’m home, I’m in bed. Often, I’ve felt at lunch that it was going to be a much better day, but by the time we were done with our activities, I could barely do anything but walk indoors and collapse for a few hours.

Many of my friends have gone through seasons of deep exhaustion over the years. I’ve secretly wondered if they were really THAT exhausted, or if maybe I was equally exhausted, but as a solo parent* I didn’t have the luxury of staying in bed all day. I mean, if I stayed in bed all day, a mortgage would not get paid and a child would not eat.

Was I being jealous, judgmental, ‘oh poor me’? Probably. I was curious, but also jealous for sure.

For quite a while, I’ve envied those who had the ability to have a major burn out episode. I have to admit I appreciated it when one such friend who stopped everything and stayed in bed for months admitted he was ‘privileged.’

Solo parents* rarely get such a luxury. Some single parents* do, every other weekend or so.

With the amount of time I’ve found to spend in bed in the last few months, I’ve realized it is possible to have an exhaustion breakdown in bits and pieces. Also, that in the past, I actually was not THAT tired. Now I just feel grateful that I never experienced this exhaustion before, and have much more compassion for my friends who have gone through this more than one time in their lives.

Life in this broken world can be very hard, truly exhausting at times. This has without a doubt been the most exhausting year of my life. And as the 3rd three month period comes to an end, I am finally feeling a bit of relief, true rest.

I am both relieved and refreshed. It is more than just the work break. It is very much being outdoors and moving my body.

After so much exhaustion, this week, we have moved our bodies and enjoyed creation! It truly has been ReCreation. Basically, I’ve been walking, in the softest sand, about 10x the number of steps I have done in the past weeks. Of course, to put that into perspective, I think I’ve been managing to stay under 1000 steps some days. But I’ve also rested, I’ve thought, I’ve journaled, I’ve created, I’ve written.

Hope is returning. Exhaustion is often accompanied by, caused by, or causes a great deal of hopelessness. Certainly I expected things in my life to be very different by now. I certainly didn’t think 8 years after my husband was killed that I would still be doing this alone. But His promises are still true. He will refresh the weary. We have been refreshed.

* I define solo parents as those who do not have a co-parent involved at all and single parents as those who have someone else at least taking the smallest amount of responsibility. I do NOT say that one is always harder than the other.