Overwhelmed.

I have been asked many times today how I am doing, and the word that can only describe it is

overwhelmed.

I started back to work on Monday, which was hard after being off for two weeks. I would have normally been excited to start out the new year and to start getting work done, except our cook quit right before Christmas. We haven't hired anyone so I am having to train and fill in in the kitchen until we get permanent help. It is exhausting. The job in itself is not necessarily *hard*. What is hard is doing my job and cooking for 80 children as well. I have had no time to do anything that I need to do, which has been very trying. And it is only Tuesday.

I had The Dream last night. Not the screaming dream that I talked about in an earlier post, but another. I have had two recurring dreams in recent years. The first one is the one I spoke of earlier in which I am screaming at someone. But this one is much more exhausting.

This dream started when I waited tables at Tia's. I worked at Tia's for 4 years, and during that time, I experienced everything to do with the restaurant business. The most trying part of waiting tables is what servers call being "in the weeds" which is when you are so over your head and busy and behind that you feel like you'll lose your mind. In this dream, I am always waiting tables and I am so behind. I have a restaurant full of tables that I am waiting on. People are staring at me because they have no drinks yet or I have forgotten they were my table. They are angry. Some people leave. Meanwhile, the servers around me are laughing and joking around. I am overwhelmed in this dream, sweaty, and my heart is pulsing.

This dream always hits me when I feel overwhelmed in my life and the hardest part about the dream is that I wake up feeling so tired. I am mentally spent because in my mind I have been waiting tables all night long.

There are so many things that are going on in my life right now and I feel like I'm grasping a slippery rope. I have made a solid effort so far in reading my Bible readings daily. Last year, I read them until August. In August we went to Mexico for vacation, and I didn't take my Bible because I didn't want it to get messed up. Interesting enough, August was when I was baptised. I wasn't very good the rest of the year regarding my Bible readings. However, when I started this year I remembered how much it impacts my life. I pray more. I have a better attitude. I try to take things in stride. I feel closer to God.

The second portion of the Bible readings have been in Psalms. The Psalms is so powerful to me, because David is so weary and burdened and crying out constantly for God to relieve him from his pain and suffering. What I find most powerful is that no matter how much lamenting David does, he never gives up on God. He keeps praying, knowing that God will give him the rest he needs, in HIS time, not in Davids. I am praying right now for God to guide me through this trying time and help me see the end of the tunnel soon as well.

Psalm 119:28
"My soul melteth for heaviness: strengthen thou me according unto thy word."