Ups and Downs and Upside Downs

I have been emotionally exhausted from the ups and downs of the entire past year, especially during this past month. If you’ve noticed I haven’t been writing much here, that’s why.

Ups

The move to my father-in-law’s house in another state was difficult in many ways. On top of the move, I was trying to figure out what it means to be an elder caregiver, which has been both more difficult and more rewarding than I expected.

About a month ago, I had finally created space for our things. After two weeks of physically tiring work in our walk-up attic, I returned to Wisconsin to finish packing up and cleaning the place we had been renting there. I worked hard, spent time with good friends, and slowly said a final goodbye to my life there.

When I turned the key in and headed back to Illinois, I could feel a liberation in my spirit. Some of the emotional burden I’d been carrying lifted. I’d had parts of my life in multiple places, and now I could be in just one place. On the drive home, I felt light-hearted. I found myself thinking about blog posts to write. I was so relieved to discover that my heart had begun to recover.

This relief lasted all of six days.

Downs

With one phone call, the floor was pulled out from under my family. One of my sons made a really bad decision. It was followed by an even worse decision, and then by a much worse decision. As a result, he is incarcerated and will remain that way for the foreseeable future.

My heart aches in ways that I didn’t know were possible. How do you grieve someone who is alive but apart from you? How on earth do you prepare for the experience of seeing your son in court wearing an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs? How is a mother supposed to reconcile the knowledge of her son’s bad actions with the memories of his sweetness as a child? How do you know which shame is yours to bear and which is yours only to witness?

Two weeks ago I went to visit him in jail, read the criminal complaint, visit the attorney, and attend a hearing. It was the hardest day of my life.

On my way home, I had more near-accidents than I can easily remember. I pulled over to have coffee in a McDonald’s while I tried to pull myself together. I finally left when I realized that I was audibly sobbing in public. I finished my coffee and my crying jag sitting in my car in the parking lot.

Oh, my anguish, my anguish! I writhe in pain. Oh, the agony of my heart! Jeremiah 4:19

My entire sense of who I was and am as a mother got completely flipped upside down. I didn’t know when it would be upright again, or if such a thing was even possible.

I’ve experienced so much sadness in the past few weeks—sadness for and about my son, sadness for my other children who are managing their brother’s affairs, sadness that this experience will forever mark my son in a particular way, and sadness that I don’t know when I will be able to embrace him again.

Yet even in my sadness, I have seen God’s presence and goodness.

My son is seeking God. He has been praying. He’s been reading the Bible and a theological book that somehow ended up in the jail library. He craves visits from our pastor there, where he talks about how jail isn’t the only prison and God seems to be the key.

He calls me every day. Our calls are limited in time, but I have had more conversations with him in the past two weeks than I probably have in the past five years. My mama heart has seen that he is not as lost to me as I had thought.

Although this is very hard and will continue to be hard for a while, it will be okay. That makes it easier to face the hardness of this, but it doesn’t make it less hard.

And More Ups and Downs

Another good thing is that after months of hard work, my husband has just started a new job as a truck driver. After months of unemployment or just part-time work, this is wonderful. I’m so proud of how hard he has worked to make this happen. It brings more changes to us, though. He will be away from home for a week at a time, so there’s yet another significant adjustment in my life.

And all that’s even before I factor in the COVID-19 pandemic and the fact that we are on our last package of toilet paper and all the stores here are out.

Gentleness and Rest

Some people love roller coasters, with the ups and downs and occasional upside downs. Me? Nope. Not in roller coasters, and not in my life.

Although I have several strands of marriage ministry, The Forgiven Wife is closest to my heart. It also requires the most emotional energy. In order to write most of my posts here, I have to reach into unpleasant memories and revisit difficult feelings. The writing isn’t hard, but revisiting my emotions takes a toll.

Recently I’ve noticed that this emotional toll has become increasingly difficult to recover from. I’ve had so much upheaval during the past year that my body doesn’t know what to do with all that emotional bombardment.

I am learning to be gentle with myself while I find my footing again.

So I’m making myself rest. I’m spending more time knitting and less time sitting in front of a computer screen. I’ve given myself permission to limit my emotional work to projects that allow me to stay in the shallows rather than having to dive deep—and that means that it’s going to be a while before I can resume writing much here.

Even more than being gentle with myself, I am learning to rest in God’s gentleness.

You have also given me the shield of Your salvation, and Your right hand upholds me; and Your gentleness makes me great. Psalm 18:35 (NASB)

I can’t manage any of this on my own, but God is ever by my side. I sense His patience with me as I continue to learn to lean on Him in new ways.

And Also with You

That’s what I want to encourage you to do, too:

Be gentle with yourself, and rest in God’s gentleness with you.

We all experience ups and downs during life. With this new corona virus, a lot of us have found that our daily lives have been completely upended.

None of us knows how to manage life during a pandemic. The world outside is scary right now, and we’re all trying to figure out how to feel like life is normal when it may be anything but. Life just feels upside down right now.

Make yourself rest. Give yourself permission to limit your to-do list. Spend time doing things that replenish you. If you’ve been working hard to grow or heal in a particular area, know that it’s okay to slow down a bit. And know that even when you slow down or life turns upside down for a while, God is ever present with you.

As for me, I can tell that I have moved from emotionally exhausted to emotionally weary, which really is a good sign. If you are so inclined, please pray for my family. And if you have any extra toilet paper, feel free to send it my way. 🙂

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. Psalm 46:1-3

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