Saturday, March 01, 2008

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!

5 comments:

Megan Cobb said...

I'm so sorry you're still feeling sick. And for all of it. This winter has been a rough one for so many, healthwise. I'm inspired, though, by the verse, and your ability to rise above it all. :)

Amy said...

Jeanne, did you, by chance, name your baby? Giving my miscarried child a name was a healing step for me. She has a name, she was mine for only a short time, she only knew love and now knows the face of God.


continuing to pray for you - we know the house and the move will all come together in God's timing...

Jessica Snell said...

I'm just catching up on all things blog again, and I wanted to take the chance to say I'm sorry for your loss. Thank you for sharing what God is showing you through it; that is a generous thing to do in your grief.

And your post reminds me of what I read yesterday in "The Divine Conspiracy" by Dallas Willard:

"One cannot think of God in such [dour] ways while confronting Jesus' declaration 'He who has seen me has seen the Father.' One of the most outstanding features of Jesus' personality was precisely an abundance of joy . . . It is deeply illuminating of kingdom living to understand that his steady happiness was not ruled out by his experience of sorrow or even grief."

Somehow the fact that God is God and God is here means that joy and grief aren't incompatible. It's so strange, but you're so right. Thanks for reminding me again that that is so.

Farrah said...

I am so sorry to hear of your loss. I will be praying for restoration and healing for you and your family, body and mind and soul. I will be praying too for God to give you the time and the strength to get your house ready to list. I know that is a huge job. But give yourself plenty of time to rest and heal.
Blessings on you and your family.
Farrah

Islandsparrow said...

Keeping you and your family in my prayers Jeanne. May the Lord fill you with comfort and joy in Him.