Connecting the Dots

Alternate title, Pull Yourself Together Soul 😉

I swear, I’ve been a mental train wreck lately. Moody. Reflective. Emotionally irritable. Restless. Unable to sleep. Sketching circles and words trying to connect all the various dots in my life (I blame this on the last book I read). Then, late into the night yesterday I read a blog post by Kari Patterson entitled “What to Do When the Novelty Wears Off.”

Ah-ha!

I love when God uses others to speak the words I don’t even know I’m trying to say. What she said; the “sluggishness” the desire for something new.

Yes.
Precisely this.

I’m all kinds of burned out on motherhood, trials and the ordinary. I’m itching for a breath of fresh air, a new adventure, a new perspective, anything to take me out of this space of keeping on keeping on. I’ve entered a season of weariness brought on by months (years?) of intensity that I just couldn’t stop. When life out paces you, you have to keep moving. But now that the crisis dust has settled (for now), I’m, well, dusty. Hazy. I’m nearly useless. No spark, no adrenaline to keep me moving ahead. I can’t determine how to walk through regular days.

There will always be “next things” to attend to; especially when raising children. In all my connect-the-dotting, I see so many questions; but none that inspire.

Just writing those words, giving them life, instantly makes me pause. I’m the mother of eight children and I’m lacking inspiration? Do I hear myself?

As if…as if what’s right in front of me is not enough. You know me, my brain goes to song lyrics…again, someone who has said it before me.

“I was hoping You would write to me a message in the stars
As if the stars themselves were not enough”

Ouch. Hi God, it’s me, Katie, the one who forgets it’s not about me from time to time. I’m craving freedom, adventure, restoration, all things new…and I’m staring a life with every available opportunity right in the eyes.

Time to gather myself up and offer my selfish ways back to Christ. Time for me to be thankful for a season of pseudo-stillness. Time for me to quit wrestling with purpose and live the days I’m in, knowing full well that God uses all things; even the ordinary, lackluster, common use days 😉

 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?
~Romans 9:21 NIV

Why are you cast down, O my inner self? And why should you moan over me and be disquieted within me? Hope in God and wait expectantly for Him, for I shall yet praise Him, who is the help of my countenance, and my God.
~Psalm 43:5 AMP