I didn’t intend for my last post to be so much about my mental health as I did for it to give perspective on my slower pace right now.

However, while we are on the subject…I would like to follow-up with a little bit of commentary on my Day in the Life of A Crazy Woman.  We all go through challenging, busy seasons.  Seasons when because of circumstances beyond our control we have to dig deep, trust God and depend on Him for our very next breath.

The specific day I described happened in a season when on top of everything else one of our daughters was dealing with a long-term medical issue (multiple surgeries, physical therapy, regular doctor visits and lots of pain) and my husband had returned to school in addition to his full-time job.

Unfortunately, a brief season turned into a way of life for me.  I lost hope and I resigned myself that all of my days were going to be just like the one I shared so I better just suck it up and keep moving.  I believed a lie that I was responsible for everybody and everything and that it was all up to me.  I was carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders.  Or more accurately, I was carrying it all in my digestive tract.

But God loves me, all of us, so much more than that. He gave me a gift that I would never have asked for and not one I would like to repeat. He let me completely fall apart.  One day not only did one of my many plates stop spinning, they all did.  At the exact same time.  In a very messy way.

And I was undone.  My “episode” was a blessing.  In a very brief period of time I got a clear glimpse of myself and my so-called-life and I knew I didn’t want it anymore.

That was eight years ago.

I didn’t know what my next step was, but it was a start on a long, slow, beautiful, painful journey.

So if any of the craziness in my last post sounded eerily similar to your own life, I would just like to say to you, God loves you and He’s got a better plan.

I am not claiming to be an expert on how to do this right, but I know I am an expert on how to do it wrong.  If a difficult, stressful, out-of-control season of life has become the definition for how you live your life, then I would like to suggest that you run, not walk, to your prayer closet.  If you’ve forgotten where it is, no worries, just lock yourself in your bathroom. Or you can just hide under your desk in your cube and call your Mommy, like I did.  Same difference.

Once you are there, just pour it all out to God and ask Him to reveal to you some ways you might be able to lay down your burdens.

If you think busy and chaotic are a normal part of life in 2014, and that I am just weak then talk to your friends and your spouse.  Ask them how they would describe your life, watching from the outside.  Ask them what it’s like to have relationship with you.

My friends would and actually did say that they had no idea anything was wrong because they thought I had it all together.  That should be one of the scariest things you ever hear from a close friend because NO ONE HAS IT ALL TOGETHER!  If we think we do, IT’S A LIE FROM THE DEVIL!

We were created to live a life in total dependence on the Father through His Son.  Period.  Anything else is an illusion of real life.

Hopefully you have lived in authentic relationship with your friends and they will tell you the truth.

Now if you read the crazy part of my last post and recognized immediately that my life was out of control and I needed help in the most desperate way.  Congratulations!  You are a healthy individual.  I would like to ask that for the sake of your friends, pray for them.  If you recognized someone else in my words, ask God to reveal His love and acceptance to her.

And ask Him how you can love your friends.  Love is not letting your girlfriends walk around with their dress tucked in their pantyhose, lipstick on their teeth, or their crazy hanging out all over the place. And if in fact, you have a sweet sister in your life that appears to have it all together…SHE DOES NOT HAVE IT ALL TOGETHER.  She is very likely dying a slow painful death on the inside.  She won’t like it one bit, but she needs you and Jesus desperately.  She will be humiliated that someone knows the real truth about her.  But I promise she’ll get over it the first time she sleeps through the night without waking up with a panic attack.

You don’t have to have the answers, just point them to Jesus and trust Him to love them through you.

Abundant, reigning life in Him is possible.  He wants to show us how and He wants to live it with us.