Exhausted

Anyone else just exhausted? I mean, I think I’m always a little exhausted in January, after all the Christmas celebrations and the New Year’s partying, but I think this year is worse. And hopefully you’re not there and you’re moving into 2021 with joy and hope, but I think a lot of my expectations that we would put 2020 behind us aren’t being realized. It’s enough to make a grown man curl up in the fetal position until spring...some men anyway.
And as I’ve been trying to navigate this exhaustion and define where it comes from, I find myself allowing thoughts and conversations and circumstances to roll around in my head. Maybe you’re not like that, but too often my exhaustion leads to greater exhaustion because those thoughts simply replay in my mind until my emotional level grows and grows and something has to give. And, so, I’m trying to find ways to work out this exhaustion and the words of someone who has to be incredibly exhausted herself has inspired me.
I was a little surprised when she added me on Facebook. Honestly, I was surprised that we weren’t already friends because I’ve know her for quite a while, but I gladly accepted the request. However, as I began to see some of her posts, honestly, I almost felt a sense of regret. Almost daily she would post something about the loss she’d faced this year, and the tragedy that it was. And the posts weren’t negative or wrong, but in them I was reminded of my grief as well, which initially felt overwhelming.
But as I read them, looked at her pictures, and reflected on her profound thoughts, the more and more I began to connect with them. I began to experience my emotions in her words and, for me anyway, felt able to grieve for my loss as well. And though my loss is nowhere near the same as hers, her words and inspiration have been a light in my grief and exhaustion.
I hadn’t realized that I still held onto that grief of my loss. I hadn’t realized, in the midst of simply living life that I hadn’t really processed the loss that I had. And so her words have helped me, significantly, realize that loss, grieve that loss and begin to accept a new reality.
And so, when I consider this and consider my exhaustion, Romans 12.15 has helped me, “Be happy with those who are happy, weep with those who weep.” (GNT) Too often I get caught up in my own world, my own loss, my own agenda that I fail to do that: be happy with others, weep with others.
I pray that we better realize how to be happy with others better and weep with others better and we’re able to find some rest from this exhaustion. God bless.