As of Friday, I was riding bps like 148/95 whenever I got up to pee. On Saturday, 2 doses into my labetalal (or something like that), the numbers were more like 130's over 80's - much better. Today, I had 106/69 - which would be okay for a normal blood pressure, but lower than my normal level and definitely lower than what my doctor wants. I was light headed and felt pretty funky.
Part of the problem is that I took my morning dose only 8.5 hours after the previous dose, rather than 12. I had a cup of coffee at church, but felt funky until after lunch. Still, even at my busiest, my bottom number is high seventies. I'm giving it a little time to see where we level out, before calling my ob and asking for a lower dose.
The ride for my heart follows a similar pattern, maybe. Going from thinking there were two weeks left to just really not knowing when or how has been a ride.
Here's where I landed:
"I want hold you."
Most of my children have gone through that delightful developmental stage of saying, not, "hold me," but "hold you." And some of them, as their language has progressed, went on to say, "I want hold-you."
Pick me up, I'm tired, I'm afraid, I don't know all these people, I don't understand what is happening, I feel small, this place is unfamiliar . . . "I want hold-you" can mean so many things, but it can all be summed up with this: whatever is wrong right now, I know you can fix it.
A little one often doesn't know why they feel the way they do. Maybe he needs a diaper change, maybe she doesn't feel well, maybe hungry, maybe thirsty, maybe a child's sensitive little spirit just knows something's just not right.
But they know the answer. Whether I'm scared, hungry, tired or poopy, being held my daddy will take care of it.
My friend Dave spent some time holding my littlest one today, and the picture of tall strong Dave holding my little baby girl, combined with the sermon and the worship reminded me of something so true.
"You are my hope," we sang. "Be silent, while the Lord fights for you," Kevin preached. "I want hold You," my heart cried out.
Pick me up, Daddy. This is hard. I feel out of control. I don't know what is going to happen. I'm frustrated. I'm lonely. I'm angry. I want hold You. Pick me up and carry me. I know You know. That is enough.
Showing posts with label discouragement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label discouragement. Show all posts
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Robbing Peter to pay Paul
I have often described my life as being like one of those Chinese acrobats that spin the plates on the sticks and are constantly on the move trying to keep each one going. At least, at my best, my life is like that. I'm not at my best right now. I'm trying to get some plates spinning and hearing others crash to the floor. It's winter, I'm matching socks, because children need to wear socks, and they are downstairs making clay figures instead of doing math, and the kitchen table is about a foot deep in empty cereal boxes and half full cereal bowls each containing about a cup of milk. I'm trying to get my act together (not altogether together, just more together) regarding meal planning, just to the point of not wanting to punch anyone who asks me after 4:30 p.m. what is for supper. Trying to plan meals. Make a big grocery trip, and break the grocery budget (and my husband's spirit) in a single shopping trip. Meanwhile the laundry is growing a smell, no wait, my husband who has worked so hard all week providing for his family, is attempting to organize our small tattered army into a movie watching, laundry sorting machine (which, incidently, only works when they've already seen the movie). I respond, as I'm sure any grateful wife would, by melting into a pool of insecurity and self pity.
Certainly there are hormones at play here. Sleep deprivation. Genuine overwhelmedness. And there is the customary attack by the enemy that comes each time we are about to welcome a new treasure into the storehouse, that goes something like this: you can't handle the children you've got - what are you thinking, having another.
I reach out through God's gift to humanity, the World Wide Web, to my sisters in faith, those other godly women who have many children like I do, and find that, either they have achieved a level of relative perfection that makes me crumble further or their "big" families consist of 4 or 5 or 6 kids. All the advice out there is either too high for me and I cannot attain to it, or it would have been very helpful about 6 kids ago.
Like Bilbo, feeling like way too little butter scraped over way too much bread, how can I do it all, meet the needs of the teenager doing geometry (I liked geometry very much, 27 years ago, but it is going to take all the conscious thought power I have, pulled away from everything else for me to enter your world and really understand what you're doing, let alone help you - is it worth that?), and the kids learning to read, and the one trying not to poop in his pants, and the ones who just did; to keep up on the laundry, the dishes, the food prep, and the character training that so desperately needs to happen (The phrase in Prov. 31, "the teaching of kindness is on her tongue" is a constant state of being!), not to mention all the plates that I've long since ignored and allowed to come crashing to the ground (weight loss comes to mind, song writing, anything that falls under the category of taking care of myself)?
So what is the answer? How do I pay Peter and Paul and all the other apostles? How do I meet the needs of husband and children and be the woman of God I desire to be?
The answer may disappoint you. I don't. My best friend told me something I sometimes forget but always come back to. He said, "come to Me, all you who are weak and heavy laden and I will give you rest for your souls. My yoke is easy, my burden is light." I put laundry and dishes in the same category as the poor - you will always have them with you. I have One I have to please. One I live for. He pays Peter, He pays Paul. He takes care of my children, my husband, and me. He will show me what to focus on today, right now. He will give me, and all those other people, everything we need.
His strength is PERFECTED in my weakness! He is greatly exalted when I lean on Him completely. He is not impressed when I perform well, but He is pleased when I hide in Him. I am poor in spirit. I'm rejoicing.
I'm sure I've written this here before, but I scoff at the phrase "God won't give you more than you can handle". No, no, no. God will absolutely give you more than you can handle. But He won't give you more than HE can handle. He is more than enough.
Sigh.
Certainly there are hormones at play here. Sleep deprivation. Genuine overwhelmedness. And there is the customary attack by the enemy that comes each time we are about to welcome a new treasure into the storehouse, that goes something like this: you can't handle the children you've got - what are you thinking, having another.
I reach out through God's gift to humanity, the World Wide Web, to my sisters in faith, those other godly women who have many children like I do, and find that, either they have achieved a level of relative perfection that makes me crumble further or their "big" families consist of 4 or 5 or 6 kids. All the advice out there is either too high for me and I cannot attain to it, or it would have been very helpful about 6 kids ago.
Like Bilbo, feeling like way too little butter scraped over way too much bread, how can I do it all, meet the needs of the teenager doing geometry (I liked geometry very much, 27 years ago, but it is going to take all the conscious thought power I have, pulled away from everything else for me to enter your world and really understand what you're doing, let alone help you - is it worth that?), and the kids learning to read, and the one trying not to poop in his pants, and the ones who just did; to keep up on the laundry, the dishes, the food prep, and the character training that so desperately needs to happen (The phrase in Prov. 31, "the teaching of kindness is on her tongue" is a constant state of being!), not to mention all the plates that I've long since ignored and allowed to come crashing to the ground (weight loss comes to mind, song writing, anything that falls under the category of taking care of myself)?
So what is the answer? How do I pay Peter and Paul and all the other apostles? How do I meet the needs of husband and children and be the woman of God I desire to be?
The answer may disappoint you. I don't. My best friend told me something I sometimes forget but always come back to. He said, "come to Me, all you who are weak and heavy laden and I will give you rest for your souls. My yoke is easy, my burden is light." I put laundry and dishes in the same category as the poor - you will always have them with you. I have One I have to please. One I live for. He pays Peter, He pays Paul. He takes care of my children, my husband, and me. He will show me what to focus on today, right now. He will give me, and all those other people, everything we need.
His strength is PERFECTED in my weakness! He is greatly exalted when I lean on Him completely. He is not impressed when I perform well, but He is pleased when I hide in Him. I am poor in spirit. I'm rejoicing.
I'm sure I've written this here before, but I scoff at the phrase "God won't give you more than you can handle". No, no, no. God will absolutely give you more than you can handle. But He won't give you more than HE can handle. He is more than enough.
Sigh.
Friday, November 19, 2010
It's not that I'm not writing . . .
I'm just not publishing anything. Partly because I am not certain enough of my decision-making skills to know if anything I'm writing would make sense to anyone living outside my brain ('cause, you know it doesn't always, right?) and partly because some things on the heart need to simmer before being laid out there for the world.
But there are other things to think about, write about, so I will write.
Did you ever have someone, maybe you knew them up close, maybe from a distance, that was the embodiment of faith or whatever, and later they fell long and hard, and you couldn't believe that they could really go from A to B? Like that day that started off at 70 degrees and somehow wound up in the 30's. It is hard to remember when it is warm what cold feels like, and vice versa. It is hard when it is cold out to pack for a warm destination.
It was hard, when I was eating healthy, living healthy, exercising, and maintaining healthy habits, to imagine ever being and living in such a fat, unhealthy way as I have done in the past and am doing again now. And today, it is a stretch to remember that I have been a healthier person.
I suppose I am a woman of extremes. The idea that I could get up tomorrow and adjust one thing and be a somewhat healthier me is just that, an idea. It never makes it more than half way down stairs. But to change completely would require considerably more resolve than I can muster at the best hour of my best day.
I started going down hill when trying to nurse pregnant, having read that I needed a large number of calories. I think it was mostly an excuse. And then going to Ronald McDonald nicu sleep deprivation land was even more of an excuse. Heck, I even allowed myself to eat more fried chicken because I am now the mother of a black child, and her birth family said it was important to make sure she got plenty of good fried chicken. (I do not mention that to say that all black people like fried chicken, just that I used a conversation I had with birthmom's friend as an excuse to further kill myself).
Now I've sunk horribly low, I hate to say, adding butter to my pbj's, just really self destructive.
I had one day, not long ago, when I felt the Lord saying, "Are you ready to admit that you can't do this without Me?" And my thought was yes, and my acknowledged dependence and renewed connection lasted a day and a half.
I had an idea for a song recently. I haven't written it yet, but the gist of it has to do with Lembas bread, from the Lord of the Rings, the waybread of the elves that Frodo and Sam eat on their journey. It had the strange effect, when eaten exclusively, to increase in it's ability to nourish and sustain, so that the longer you had eaten only Lembas, the more content and satisfied and strengthened you where when you ate it.
The whole thing in the book of Hosea where it talks about taking the reckless destructive wayward wife out into the wilderness and stripping her, not of her dignity (she already did that) but of her creature comforts and her other gods, and teaching her, reminding her of the love of her husband ties in to the image in the Song of Solomon of the bride coming up out of the wilderness, leaning on her Beloved, like an army with banners, victorious but weary, weak, limping, and utterly dependent (and thoroughly convinced of her dependence) on her majestic, heroic, steady, faithful and true, Bridegroom-Redeemer.
I am in a distant place from that dependence, that place of leaning, of taking in what sustains my body and drinking my fill of what sustains my soul.
I know that He gently leads the nursing ewes. I know He is still especially fond of me and not angry with me. I know that He is for me and not against me.
But I have ADD of the spirit right now, my courage, my stamina, my pluck, all pretty well shot.
Probably would have been better if I hadn't written, eh?
But there are other things to think about, write about, so I will write.
Did you ever have someone, maybe you knew them up close, maybe from a distance, that was the embodiment of faith or whatever, and later they fell long and hard, and you couldn't believe that they could really go from A to B? Like that day that started off at 70 degrees and somehow wound up in the 30's. It is hard to remember when it is warm what cold feels like, and vice versa. It is hard when it is cold out to pack for a warm destination.
It was hard, when I was eating healthy, living healthy, exercising, and maintaining healthy habits, to imagine ever being and living in such a fat, unhealthy way as I have done in the past and am doing again now. And today, it is a stretch to remember that I have been a healthier person.
I suppose I am a woman of extremes. The idea that I could get up tomorrow and adjust one thing and be a somewhat healthier me is just that, an idea. It never makes it more than half way down stairs. But to change completely would require considerably more resolve than I can muster at the best hour of my best day.
I started going down hill when trying to nurse pregnant, having read that I needed a large number of calories. I think it was mostly an excuse. And then going to Ronald McDonald nicu sleep deprivation land was even more of an excuse. Heck, I even allowed myself to eat more fried chicken because I am now the mother of a black child, and her birth family said it was important to make sure she got plenty of good fried chicken. (I do not mention that to say that all black people like fried chicken, just that I used a conversation I had with birthmom's friend as an excuse to further kill myself).
Now I've sunk horribly low, I hate to say, adding butter to my pbj's, just really self destructive.
I had one day, not long ago, when I felt the Lord saying, "Are you ready to admit that you can't do this without Me?" And my thought was yes, and my acknowledged dependence and renewed connection lasted a day and a half.
I had an idea for a song recently. I haven't written it yet, but the gist of it has to do with Lembas bread, from the Lord of the Rings, the waybread of the elves that Frodo and Sam eat on their journey. It had the strange effect, when eaten exclusively, to increase in it's ability to nourish and sustain, so that the longer you had eaten only Lembas, the more content and satisfied and strengthened you where when you ate it.
The whole thing in the book of Hosea where it talks about taking the reckless destructive wayward wife out into the wilderness and stripping her, not of her dignity (she already did that) but of her creature comforts and her other gods, and teaching her, reminding her of the love of her husband ties in to the image in the Song of Solomon of the bride coming up out of the wilderness, leaning on her Beloved, like an army with banners, victorious but weary, weak, limping, and utterly dependent (and thoroughly convinced of her dependence) on her majestic, heroic, steady, faithful and true, Bridegroom-Redeemer.
I am in a distant place from that dependence, that place of leaning, of taking in what sustains my body and drinking my fill of what sustains my soul.
I know that He gently leads the nursing ewes. I know He is still especially fond of me and not angry with me. I know that He is for me and not against me.
But I have ADD of the spirit right now, my courage, my stamina, my pluck, all pretty well shot.
Probably would have been better if I hadn't written, eh?
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