Wrong Direction

Today I realized that fatigue comes in many forms and fashions.

The first and most obvious form is physical. Your feet start to hurt. Your lower back hurts. Your legs ache. You feel like you can't sit down long enough to relieve the stress in your body. You just want to lay your head down and close your eyes. The thought of a hot bath makes you somewhat salivate. When physical exhaustion takes form, my head starts to hurt and often - thanks to years of piano playing and waitressing that resulted in carpal tunnel - my hands hurt badly. This is the beginning.

The next form, for me, is emotional. I get so upset about the situation. I feel like yelling, crying, moping, and then laughing all in a rotating pattern. This is when I have to be careful who I talk to because I'm likely to vent all my feelings to the wrong person and it ends up biting me in the backside. Shortly after the emotional form comes mental fatigue. At this point, the mixture of physical and emotional fatigue have done me in. I start to forget things easily and can't seem to remember the small details. Although impairing, this step is minor in the steps of the fatigue process.

The final step in fatigue comes in a spiritual sense. This is a combination of all of the above. With the emotional rollar coaster and mental exhaustion comes questioning. My attitude suffers. I question the major things in my life and question what God has in store for me and why He has led me to the place I am.

I have been through this feeling a few times in the past couple of months. Each time I go through the same process. The other day, I was starting to feel down when I remembered something that I wrote a long time ago. When I was younger, I wrote constantly - usually short stories and poetry. I remembered something I wrote when I was around 14 and finally found it tonight.

Today I was at the point of questioning my life. I questioned why God was putting me in a situation, and I think He directed me to this for a reason. Reading over it tonight was eye opening. I can't believe at 14 I understood so much about life. I realized by reading this - again, after many years - that we will always question and we will always go through these situations. They are only obstacles that God has set before us in order to become the bigger and better person that we are - more like Christ, more like the people we are meant to be.

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It seems like lately life has got me down

I get ahead only to be spun around

The realistic views I held so dear

are all of the sudden not so clear

Each step that I take down this long road

only makes me tired with its overbearing load

The happiness is there but how to achieve

when each day it gets so much harder to believe

Just when things seem to be going my way

something new comes to change the day

I pray to God to reveal my strength

to keep me going when the water gets deep

I know it don't come easy, just like they say

so I close my eyes and try to pray

For a better time, to bring me peace

to show me that happiness isn't totally out of reach

So I'll keep on going and try to hold my faith

Because I know in the end God will show me the way..

Even when we are physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually tired and feel alone and lost, God is there for us. When we feel our attitudes and our lives are going in the wrong direction, He is there to steer us in the right way, if we pay attention to Him and His plan. I can only hope that in the next few weeks as I keep going through these trying situations, I can remember this poem that I wrote at such a young age, and see all that God has done and is doing in my life.

Matthew 11:28
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.