It's been almost two years since my last post. I had good intentions enough to write a novel. An idea would arise, a passionate idea or thought, but the task of fleshing out ideas in words and type overwhelmed, and I just....didn't.
Two years, passed in a flash, in "the blink of an eye". Two years consumed with homeschooling, seeking out the groove of the paleo/primal lifestyle that worked for us, and attempting to find a balance of commitment with the new found energy I had gained through the healing diet changes. To transition from being afraid to commit to anything for fear of a migraine-induced cancellation to the novelty of having energy and migraine-free days with which to accomplish tasks and fulfill commitments has been a heady thing. The temptation to make up for migraine-stolen years, to do now so much that wasn't possible before, must be tempered by the knowledge that if I attempt too much 'more', my still adrenal-fatigue-fragile body can yet be cast into a not-as-familiar-but-still-possible week of fatigue and migraines.
A week like the one I'm just coming out of, just breaking the surface of fatigue and headaches, easing back into the breaststroke of a functioning life.
It was exhilarating, this new found ability to accomplish so much through the holidays. Amazing that the usual days of absolute exhaustion, sometimes half a week lost before energy returned, weren't knocking me flat as in years past.
Perhaps someday I'll learn to quit while ahead, to stop, to breathe, to rest before my body deflates. Too much doing, not enough resting, and my body's response is: "We're done." No choice given but to listen, to strip down to the bare minimum of commitments. To rest and recover since our New Year's snowbird flight to Florida.
Slowly I'm learning that sometimes the pain comes so that we are quiet, whether we desire it or not. That the pain-induced stillness is God's way of reminding us to slow down, to focus, and to not try to do it all. Because the honest truth is, I've been striving to do it all, too much, and so much of it with the wrong focus. The primal lifestyle has been a God directed avenue of healing for me, one I'll forever be grateful for, but it was an overwhelming change at first. My all-or-nothing self dove in head first, attempting to change everything at once. By God's grace I found success, but at the expense of losing focus on the very One who led me to my healing, the only One in whom true Life is found.
This is our new 'normal' now, this cooking without grains, without processed foods, without junk. Become simply the way I cook, the way I eat, as if the lens through which I view food has a new, healthier filter fitted on top. I'm grateful for that. There are other things now that need my attention, that deserve my attention, far more than what's going on our plates.
I feel God speaking to me more in these few short, first weeks of the new-born year than I have felt in a time far too long. I'm learning to be thankful for the fatigue, for the pain when it comes from Him, for it is in the quiet, and very often in the pain, that we are best able to hear His voice. God's voice is rarely a roar over the din, blinding us on the road to Damascus to all but His message. It is instead a soft, small whisper waiting patiently for the moment we decide we have time to listen.
I have been un-quiet for too long now, perhaps for the last two years. I've neglected my inbox from God the way I ignore my virtual inbox, forced to wade through a sea of junk in order to find the important.
This year, that will change. I will allow God to lead me to a rhythm of life that is in tune with His will for me. I will strike inharmonious notes, I will fall out of step, I will sing in a key too loud and too angry, but I when I do, I hope I will fall forward, fall back onto the music He is laying down for me, giving me just enough light to see the notes that come next. I will try, as well, to be faithful to this blog. Faithful not in hopes of popularity or page visits, but faithful out of the knowledge that it is often only in the reflection, in the looking back over what notes have already been played, that we see the melodious beauty of the symphony God has written, and is daily writing, for us.
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