Priority #5 - Myself - A Good Cry

Central Texas, where I live, has scarcely seen one drop of rain since late April. This is the most severe drought on record. The drought has almost become a way of life. We can get used to it. Princess Butterfly went on a little trip with Friend Hubby up to Oklahoma this week. She sent me a text message that said, "Rain still exists!" I replied, "Good, bring some home!"

My mind has recently been going through it's familiar circle of "what ifs." I get used to stuffing them back down as soon as they surface, but recently, I had a talk with my uncle. He's the type of person who can pull a cry out of you, in spite of all your best efforts at holding down the fort. In addition to that, in my job as a medical transcriptionist, I had to type a report of a man who had irreversible complications from just a routine surgery and was about to be put on hospice with minutes to hours left to live, and the physician dictating mentioned on more than one occasion the look of fear in the man's eyes. Some days my job is just hard to do.

After that, I seemed to have sprung a leak. The more I tried to stuff my "what ifs" the more difficult they became to contain. My house is rarely completely empty, but this was a karate night. I tried to sit at my computer and work, but one tear slipped away from me and before I knew it, a torrent of tears came tumbling down on my keyboard, blurring my computer screen. I just cried and cried and cried until I couldn't cry any more. I wasn't just crying for the patient in my report. I was crying for my daughter who didn't get to live to go to college and be married and have children. I cried for my grandmother who died the morning of my daughter's funeral, whom I miss terribly, particularly after speaking with my uncle. I cried for my mother who died earlier this year and although our last words to one another expressed our love for one another, it did not erase all the ugly words she said while I was trying to take care of her, and trying to take care of everyone else too.

I had my cry, my thunderstorm, and then I did what my mother always taught me to do. Move forward. We've seen from our Torah readings this year, self-pity never moves anyone into the promised land, ANY promised land. I have a new school year to start, a ministry to help my husband with, and a host of things I need to reorganize and learn. I have been at this mountain long enough. Time to dry the tears and get moving.


"And the Lord spoke to me [Moses], saying, 'You have roamed around this mountain country long enough; turn northward.'" Deuteronomy 2:3 AMP

Blessings,