Never Alone

Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us. Matthew 1:34 (KJV)

Thanks for all your well wishes and advice. As some of you suggested, I checked the side effects of the blood pressure medicine and will call my doctor tomorrow. Even armed with that information, I had a major meltdown this afternoon. My husband and I have battled weeds in the horse pasture for months now. We till, spray and use weed and feed fertilizer, but two types of pesky broadleaf weeds continue to return. The horses do not eat them so the weeds not only spread, but prevent grass from growing. There is nothing for the horses to eat forcing us to buy more hay than we should have to. Periodically, my husband goes into battle mode and when he does, if I don’t go out to help, I am a traitor to the cause which is particularly bad because it is my horse he is trying to help. Today, he decided the only thing to do would be to pull the weeds by hand. All five acres of weeds. I had other plans for the afternoon including hanging garland on the front porch, finishing decorating the trees and firing some more projects in the kiln. My to do list did not include bending, stooping and yanking weeds so tough that they have to be dug out of the ground. So, of course, when I walked away and didn’t help, we argued, he stalked off and I ended up sitting in a chair in the middle of the pasture fighting weeds. My hands already hurt because I had cut the tips of all my fingers cutting glass yesterday and burned the palms of my hands on a hot pan at lunchtime, so it was painful to wrestle those weeds. Then, I stuck my already wounded hands into an ant pile. That was the last straw for my medically induced saddened state of mind, and I started crying loud enough I am sure the neighbors could hear. I kept saying over and over, “I can’t do this anymore.” The weeds had me outnumbered, and I felt so alone. Finally my husband took pity on me and told me to quit. After doctoring my hands, I went into the garage to work on my glass, but just stared at my to do list as the words, “I can’t do this anymore” echoed in my head. The only task left was to cut twenty eight little pieces of glass shaped like holly leaves for Christmas pendants. All I could think to do was to tackle them one at a time and soon, I had a pile of leaves and could turn off the grinder and go inside. Once calmer, I thought about why we celebrate Christmas. Jesus, God’s Son, came as a human to remind us that God wants a relationship with us. Whether you are hurting or lonely, fighting a battle you don’t think you can win or talking it one step at a time, remember, you are never alone.