Sleep doesn't help if it is your Soul that is tired.

I was in my car just sitting on the side of the road allowing myself a moment of self-pity.

It was an exceptionally long couple weeks. My boss’s memory worse than ever creating tense patience as he asked me the same thing for the 5th time that day. Add to that a client had a tirade in which I had to continually bite my tongue to prevent saying what I really wanted to say to this Devil who found his way of out hell.

I did not want to go home to my children who are super excited to see me. It is not fair that they get the tired agitated part of me. So here I sit yelling at the steering wheel banging the rim trying to work out my anger. I wait for a calm sense to come over me as I turn the volume up to a song I love…. NEED YOU NOW by Plumb. I feel the exhaustion deep in my soul. I am not tired, but I am exhausted. I have felt this way for some time now. It is a feeling that is hard to describe and one I cannot figure how to get past. And I know it is not a feeling that will go away just because I am sitting on the side of the road blasting Christian songs that beg God to help me.

I begin the conversation I often have with myself. Where are you God? What am I doing wrong? Why when I need you the most I feel you the least? My mind trails off to all those moments in my life since my childhood at the early age of eight that I had begged for God to please help me. My doubts creep up fast and begin to suffocate the side of me that I thought was a Christian. I try to serve God each and every single day. I try to do everything with God in mind. Why is this not enough? I am struggling with time to fulfill my duties as a Mom, a Wife, a Caregiver, an Employee, A Friend and even a Christian. How can you expect me to add more to please you God?

Anyone driving past might think I was having an in-depth phone conversation based on my facial strain and hand movements. If only there were a phone extension to Jesus.

I don’t know how long I sat there before the local Police pulled up to ask me if I was alright or if my car broke down. The only answer I was able to relay is that my car is fine, and I am only broken on the inside. His eyes seemed to soften as he replied, “we all are”. He was concerned that I might not make it to a gas station since my gas light was on and insisted on following me. I had just filled my tank a few days before and had no clue how it was even possible to be that low but I guess I did more running around than I thought. No wonder I was exhausted.

We had gotten to the gas station and I pulled up to the tank when he approached me and said have a very blessed day and if you want to feel less broken inside strive to Live Loved. I thanked him of course and told him to have a good day as well. Odd advice from a Police Officer. Advice I knew my husband would never give to a stranger in his years as a Police Officer.

I couldn’t help but continue to think of this profound piece of advice. Live Loved. What does that actually mean. I had heard it many times. I have it on a plaque hanging in my house. A beautiful sentiment indeed. One that would tell the world hey this girl has beautiful sayings in her house she must have it all together. Instead of feeling better I only began to feel worse. And so, I began to do what I do when I feel bad. I clean. As if by cleaning I can start fresh and my soul can begin a new day.

As the gasoline pumps ever so slowly due to the colder weather, I began to clean the inside of my vehicle out.

It isn’t like there is bags of garbage but there are a few things that I can get rid of in this gas station garbage can to free up some space in my soul.

My hand has the few empty cups of Starbucks Hot Chocolate. My weak attempt to ease my stress.

I turn to throw them away when I see sitting on the huge mound of garbage a tattered very well used book. The cover and first pages of title, author and chapters are missing. The pages are yellowed, and many are dog eared. The binder is well bent as if this book was read each and every single day for years.

My first thought was that this is how God expects our Bibles to look because a clean non-worn Bible only means that it is a decoration not a well-read book.

My love of reading compels me to take this book with no title. The mystery calls out to me. My internal exhaustion seems to fade some at the thought of this mysterious book. I now cannot wait to get home so I can be with my family and then once they are all tucked in bed I can begin to read this book. I anxiously think on my way home of the places this book will take me. The world I might escape into that will free my mind for just a short time.

The evening goes smoothly. A first in a very long time. The time has come. I am in my favorite reading spot covered with my favorite blanket and my warm peppermint tea sitting next to me. I pick up the book. Feel the pages. Turn over the cover less book to the back page that reads only one sentence; Bonus Chapter; What it is like to do life with me. My intrigue spikes even higher as I laugh at the thought of those who say they never want my life. I know without a doubt I will have this book completed tonight.

I begin a book by always reading the Acknowledgments. The acknowledgment gives the specifics to the author and those the author thanks. But more importantly is why the book was written. Within these words I get a sense of the importance of the words within the book. I sense the genre and if it is a light reading or intense. This book is going to be intense. I had reread the paragraph at least a dozen times. This book was indeed going to be intense.

Acknowledgments

“My greatest desire in writing this book is for those who have grieved a loss that was there one day and gone the next, or questioned whether God has any good plans for you and to tenderly tackle the hard subject of rejection using biblical truths and perspectives because I personally need those revelations. Over the years, I had slowly started to see that rejections from my past were affecting me more than I realized. I was handling present day rejections, both big and small, with compounded hurt. I am thankful that the Lord placed people in my life to process those feelings with and share their own hurts as well. In various ways, their fingerprints dance all inside this book. I thank God for weaving these lives into mine.”

WOW!!!!!

I could not wait to get started on this book. Highlighter and Pen in hand to mark things I felt hit close to home I began. Within the first couple pages I put the book down. I see that I have highlighted almost the entire first couple pages and marked with pen the paragraphs that I felt I needed to remember. I sat staring at the book wondering if I were really ready to read it. I still did not know the title nor the author. I decided to google the acknowledgements to see if the name of the book came up but it did not. I sat staring at it as I thought about my day. Who throws a book away that they obviously loved to read. Am I crazy to think that maybe just maybe it was meant to be put there for me to find. Will the answers I had been seeking for some time be in this book. Will reading it make my emotional exhaustion better or worse. There have only been a few times that a book instills the need to read at the same time the fear of reading. This book is definitely one I want to read and feel I may fear.

I pick up the book again. Only to read…

“How dangerous it is when our souls are grasping for God but we are too distracted flirting with the world to notice. We run at a breakneck pace to try and achieve what God simply wants us to slow down enough to receive.”

Another awestruck moment. There within those words of the first chapter I am hooked and understand the exhaustion within my soul. I am ready.

I have read the book twice now. I have figured the name and author. I plan to order a copy or two. I am unsure if this book would put such hold on anyone else. However, I feel those who will understand my struggles and have made attempts to help me understand the difficult journey I have had so far will see what I grasp inside these pages.

I have learned from this book. I was able to revisit words of advice from the past that seemed to fade in time. For years I had been expecting and “praying” for a normal dull stable life. I felt if I stayed hidden and in control stability will come to me eventually. But when life felt threatening, I would revert back to the old thought patterns of feeling unloved and unwanted. Just as this book says..I couldn’t keep my old broken beliefs, nail a little Jesus to the side, and expect stability. My thoughts that I must keep things good so I can be good must be torn out.

Living Loved on an empty soul is exhausting. It is easy to live loved when you feel loved.

I want the kind of stability that you read about in the Bible. But this will never come if you keep hiding the truth of yourself from the world.

You can’t create a Christian to do list with all manners of serving, blessing, and giving others the kind of love you are so desperate to have boomerang back to you. You will not feel loved this way because this is not love. Secret expectations are unrealistic. It is false Christianity. It is manipulation of a needy person in desperate need of feeling wanted and loved by others. You cannot do many things with God in mind without getting refilled by God. You cannot connect with Him and still allow the world to dictate your thoughts and feelings based on how you “feel” others think and feel about you.

“Live from the abundant place that you are Loved, and you won’t find yourself begging others for scraps of Love.”

People can’t fix on the outside the perspective you have and feel that needs to be rewired on the inside. And the only way you can rewire yourself is by the help of God and others God has sent your way. He speaks through them ways in which you can use to become a new you. A stronger you. The You that God meant for you to be. You must find within Gods messengers your to do list that will allow your soul to become renewed and alive. Even if the messenger comes in the way of thrown out trash.