Making Lemonade

I haven't written for a few weeks because since going back to work I have found myself absolutely exhausted. This level of exhaustion is new to me. I've felt tired in the past but always been able to just plough on and do what needs doing. What is different this time is that my whole body aches quite a lot of the time and often I am struggling to be able to concentrate through a foggy and achey head. I am having to accept that sometimes I am just not able to do anything - as evidenced by the fact that I am currently in bed at 5pm on a Monday. 

Accepting that my capacity is limited for now is really difficult. I am a do-er and I find it hard to sit still. I'm also a thinker and switching off my brain is also really hard. But with limited energy to draw upon I am having to be ok with some things just not being on the agenda for now. It is still very much a case of one day at a time, and even that can feel too challenging. Sometimes the goal is even shorter - just get through this workshop and then it's lunchtime, just get through this meeting and then you get to go home. It's hard, as someone who is used to dreaming and scheming and thinking off into the future, to only be able to see a few hours ahead, but thinking any further ahead is just too overwhelming for now.

Thinking in the short term has it's bonuses though. The mundane little tasks of life become huge achievements and I count as blessings things that I would, in normal circumstances, take for granted. It's back to that word perspective. It seems to me that what I am learning most in this season is to see the world from a different angle. 

As the platitude says, "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” I'm a strong believer that it's good to find the best in every situation. In the pain and struggle of our current circumstance and in the stillness that my exhaustion insists upon, I am finding new ways of seeing the world. The platitude speaks of making sweetness from bitterness and I have always thought of bitterness as being a sinful state of the heart, but looking it up in the dictionary a couple of definitions seemed particularly fitting to our situation:

•   Difficult or distasteful to accept, admit, or bear

•   Resulting from or expressive of severe grief, anguish, or disappointment

In Romans 8:28 Paul writes, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

I can’t begin to understand why we miscarried, and I definitely don’t have any sense of the theology around it, but I know that in the midst of this bitter pain, God is working for good. I know that He can use this time of exhaustion for His purposes. I am trying to rest in Him, knowing that He has a hold of me even when I’m too exhausted to make it to church, even when all I can manage to read of the Word is one or two verses at a time, even when all I can pray is “God, give me strength”. I will hold strong to the promises I know of His goodness and I will be open to what He is doing in this season, knowing that it is Him that makes the lemonade and that all I have to do is just keep bringing Him the lemons.

How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Psalm 119: 103

Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. Psalm 34: 8