I am so weak...

I wanted to take a little detour from the past into a very present moment where I can be real with you.  Healing for Mamas does not happen overnight.  Just a couple of weeks ago, I felt the Holy Spirit prompting me to sign up for the ladies’ bible study.  This was scary to me because I cannot even remember when I last attended a group like this at my own church.  You know how it is…I’ve been caregiving.  And during that time I’ve become very isolated from most of the ladies at my church.  I do have a few very close friends and I’ve been deliberate about setting aside time to spend with them over the last year or so.  That has been a huge step in healing.  But I just have felt God calling me to step out and re-connect with women as a whole at church so I wrote my name on the sign-up sheet one Sunday but definitely didn’t expect for this to happen… 

Last night was our first bible study.  I walked in and saw many familiar faces and some new ones too.  But even though the faces were familiar, as I listened to the conversations around me, I felt like a new visitor.  I had no idea what these ladies have been going through.  I felt like a stranger in my home church which was supposed to feel like home.  It was another reminder of how disconnected I have become.  I became suddenly emotional and considered getting up and leaving.  Perhaps I was not ready for this yet.  I asked myself why I felt so overwhelmed and weepy.   My answer?  I was vulnerable.  I have spent years setting my emotion aside so I can make smart decisions for my daughter.  I’ve put up walls where those around me don’t see my weaknesses because my daughter needed me to be strong.  Behind closed doors I’ve allowed my emotions to flow out like a rough river, but not with others. 

It didn’t help that the speaker in the video told her story which was full of pain and disappointment.  But most of what she said was how I felt.  In my heart, I knew God had prepared for me to be here.  Moving forward is not easy for EDS Mamas.  When my daughter has gone through flares, I’ve always felt about two months behind her in recovery, exhausted and left in ruins.  We simply keep going on because we HAVE to but are we really taking time to recover ourselves?  Tonight I CHOSE to move on.  It’s not easy.  No, it’s painful, but when I am weak, He is strong.  “But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’  Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.  For when I am weak, then I am strong.”  2 Corinthians 12:9-10 NIV.  What will you choose to do to keep moving forward, Mama?  You are worth it.