Hard

Gosh, where do I start?  This past week has been a roller coaster of emotions for me.  The last time I blogged I talked about my most recent weight loss efforts and the results from my counting calories and exercising like a crazy woman routine.  And then the next day I totally lost all steam and energy. 

Over the past couple of months, it seems like the week before "that time of the month," my body starts acting all crazy.  I'm talking totally drained, I can barely keep my eyes open during the day no matter how much sleep I've gotten the night before, plain out exhaustion.  And then there's the mental fog and the dip in my hormones causing me to feel like I barely have the strength to go through the motions of life without just falling apart.  On the outside I look just fine...on the inside I'm a mess. All I want to do is sleep and I feel like all the energy has been sucked out of me.  I start to feel like all hope is lost.  I get drastic--thinking the world is against me--and I cry a lot.  And all I can do is just wait the whole thing out until it passes.  Which can be days or an entire week. I hate it.

Well, add all of this to the fact that I'm in the beginning of my journey back to school and barely starting to get a school routine down.  I'm still trying to find my way through lots of reading, homework and studying, which is more challenging than I thought it would be.  Especially during the times when my body decides to go haywire. I start push the panic button and  wonder what the heck I'm doing in school because nothing is making sense to me.  I wonder why things are so hard for me to understand and why I just can't get it together.  The devil seems to be working overtime lately to crush me down to nothing and tell me that I'm too old for all of this.

Hope peeked through a little though and yesterday was the first day in the past week that I actually felt closer to "normal" again.  Only it's been hard to feel normal when it hasn't been normal days around here.  I went to school with a heavy heart yesterday, after on Wednesday, getting the news that my sweet friend Wren, the one I first shared last year who received the news that she had cancer while she was expecting a baby girl....is getting ready to be with Jesus soon.  She's been fighting this battle for over a year now and despite treatments, the cancer has spread in ways that cannot be contained (unless the Lord decides to intervene) and they've opted to discontinue treatment. Yesterday, Wren was released from the hospital and was taken home where she'll receive hospice care during the next part of the journey.

My heart's breaking and my thoughts have been with Wren.  She was my MOPS leader and the first person that welcomed me into our group with kindness and love when I was a lonely momma, in need of friends.

I'm realizing how my issues, although they feel important and valid when I'm experiencing them, aren't comparable to the things that Wren is going through.  I think about her and waves of grief take over.  I don't and will never probably see all the why's of life but I do know that for some purpose, this is part of God's plan.  I'm just gonna lean on Him, the only one who can give us peace and comfort.  I know His glory will be seen in this. Somehow. Some way. And that lives have been touched by the beautiful woman I call friend.

Wren, I love you and my heart is with you, sweet friend.