Rocky Ledge

These past many months have felt like many things.  One sense has been of walking on a stony ledge, needing to carefully select where I place my foot, knowing that loose rocks could send me smashing and rolling downward.  Most of my actions have been deliberate, calculated ....keeping things at bay, or grabbing tight to lifelines.  It's an exhausting way to live.  I've always been somewhat controlled, wanting to know what's ahead, where danger may lie, threaten me, us. Or simply to just manage life in a busy, thriving, growing household ...that's life as a mom of many kids.  But what I mean here is different because the steps are deliberate out of fear ...out of what could happen, the fear of that ....of becoming even sadder, even more desperate, unable to live and serve my family, unable to laugh.  It's not healthy ...understandable yes, but not healthy ...physically, emotionally, most especially spiritually, because it lacks a trust in God.  Trusting God will allow me to abandon all to Him ...my fear, my sadness, sorrow, foreboding, ...anger.  When I calculate my steps with such deliberation, I am not trusting ...I am doubting. 
There is so much that races through my heart and mind, like winds that wrap themselves around me.  I'm tired, tired of grieving and missing, tired of the labor of it all, the hard work that will not go away.  God tells us He will, does carry our burdens for us.  The trick is finding how to really lay them at His feet ...and then trust He will pick it up.
I have a sense that I would rather run along the rocky ledge, just as Phoebe would have, only in barefeet.  I'll have shoes on, but let me start running more, not be so scared of the loose rocks.  I can't do that until I find the place in my heart that lets me trust God ...and choose for Him to carry my burdens for me.

Eternal rest grant unto Phoebe and may perpetual light shine upon her.  May she rest in peace. Amen.