Intermission is Over
The house lights flicker, the orchestra tunes and the ushers entreat you to find your seats. Intermission is over and the curtain is rising as we begin the next act in the life of Mel. Thank you for your patience and understanding while I’ve been on intermission. It was a little longer than I anticipated and I’m only half sure that I’m ready to move on to the next act but its time. On with the show.
In my preparation to return to the stage, I read through most of my 100 posts since I began blogging in July 2004. What an interesting journey that was. Some things I had forgotten. Some things were all too familiar. Some things I was tempted to cut and paste for today because they are still quite relevant. (unfortunately). But one thing I noticed as I read was "where the heck is the girl who wrote these things? what happened to her?" Even I miss that Pollyanna, unexpected blessing optimist. I feel like I lost her for a while. The last couple of weeks I’ve been emotionally empty. My heart took a major hit and I had nothing. Yet life all around me kept going . . . as it should. The problem with this is that my career, my profession, requires a great deal of heart. People constantly look to you for heart time and they should. That is a huge part of ministry. However, when you have only a shred of life strength left and you are holding onto it for dear life so that you don’t crash and burn, you have nothing left for others. So every day is survival day. An internal, selfish struggle to hold on to what little hope and energy I have while trying to do what I need, and want, to do for others.
This is life, right? All of us have this struggle whether you are in ministry or not. Many of us have people around us that depend on you or look to you for strength or encouragement or work. Family members; co-workers; friends; etc. And sometimes, for various reasons, you are maxed out. But you can’t just go hide out until you reservoirs are built back up. You have to keep the motions going and find little ways to rebuild your strength on the sly. My supplies are still really low – due to a variety of withdrawals since May that I failed to replenish along the way. But they are not as low as they were last week and that knowledge is where I find gratitude.
Some probably will not understand what I’m talking about or think that I am being melodramatic about life. We can always play the game of saying, "you think you’ve got it bad. . . let me tell you, you have no idea." But let’s not do that with one another and belittle what people experience or feel. If you really knew me and how my heart "feels" things, you would have compassion for my grief and my pain. You would know that when I decide that it is safe to care, my heart is completely vulnerable. You would have patience with me while I try to mend. You would understand that in person I’m faking that everything is fine in the hope that one day very soon I will actually believe everything is fine. You would cut me some slack knowing that I rarely allow myself to succumb to the negative of life. If you only love me when I’m a Pollyanna optimist, then you don’t really love me.
I promised myself when I began this blog that I would always strive to be as honest as I could be in what I posted. So tonight I wanted to be honest about where I’ve been lately which is why I’ve shared what I have with you.
But the intermission is over. It’s time to pick up the story in the next scene and move forward. I know great things have yet to come in the story and the sooner intermission is over, the sooner we get to those scenes.
I’ll post new tomorrow because I do have some awesome things to bore you with: a weekend wedding; a significant anniversary; a 1st birthday party for the main man in my life and a girls’ night out that is bound to rock!
Peace and fresh starts – Melissa