Choosing to Shout!

I'm not always very in touch with my emotions. I may know something is wrong, may even think I know what it is, but I often don't really know what is going on inside until I journal or talk about it.

And I've had a rough week. Even though it's been over a week since the D & C, I'm still feeling slightly nauseous (pregnancy hormone still in my system, my doctor said), physically weaker than usual, and emotional still from the loss and from the procedure. (General anesthesia always seems to traumatize me, somehow!)

We've had illness at our house--four different bugs, all consecutive and in some cases, overlapping. I've been blessedly unscathed by fever, but the Head Cold & Cough From Everlasting to Everlasting has missed no one, and though I've been on the mend for the last week or so, it's definitely still dragging me down.

With illness, though, we got another two days behind in school, and that's disappointing to me. I'm already dreading how many days we're going to have to make up this summer! I've never been a "we have to finish the curriculum" kind of gal before, but for high school, I feel more pressure. I think we do need to finish all the lessons in the Algebra book or the science book before they go on to the next course. So that's been kinda discouraging.

And on the house front, I had hoped we'd have it listed by now! We did get the basement and both upstairs bathrooms painted--just have one more bathroom with a perennial problem around the bottom of the shower that's got to be fixed and painted before we can list it, and we have someone coming to work on that next week.

But the frustrating part is that because of illness, my slow recovery, and schoolwork we need to focus on, it's been hard to do the Big De-Cluttering Project that is essential before we list it. Every room has got to be as stream-lined as possible, so that it can be straightened up and ready to show at a moment's notice. All the closets and shelves have got to be re-organized and de-cluttered again, because people WILL open them and you want them to look spacious, right? So we need to be filling more boxes to add to the towers of packed boxes that have resided in our garage all winter--and how does that look, to have your 2.5 car garage crammed full of boxes and extra furniture?

I'm overwhelmed.

I'm not feeling very joyful, myself. So I was struck by this Psalm when I read it yesterday:

Happy are the people who know the festal shout! They walk, O LORD, in the light of your presence. They rejoice daily in your Name; they are jubilant in your righteousness. For you are the glory of their strength, and by your favor our might is exalted. Truly, the LORD is our ruler; the Holy One of Israel is our King. ~Psalm 89:15–18

Oh Lord, I can rejoice daily in You. Not in my circumstances, which are always in flux and subject to sickness and death. Not in my own strength, which ebbs with age and health. But You are the glory of my strength. The light of your Presence is the sun in my winter blahs. You enlighten my dark mind; you meet me in the midst of my uncertain emotions. You comfort my grief and my fears. Though they may linger, I will cling to You, rejoicing in Your righteousness and in Your strength when my own is lacking. I don't always FEEL like it, Lord, but I CHOOSE to rejoice in you, to fix my mind on things above even as I go about my temporal occupations.

Remind me daily, Lord, to shout the festal shout!