Figuring Out the Follow Through

So here’s the deal. These last few weeks have been bananas. Like mental frailty at its best BANANAS. It would have been pretty crazy regardless, but to add to the madness, everyone in my care (including myself) ended up needing some sort of medication. Sweet husband and I were on matching lover’s antibiotics for some sort of sinus infection/congestion/potential looming strep. Oldest was on antibiotics and ear drops for his never ending ear saga. Middle had a mishap at summer camp and was on Motrin and medicine for his injuries. Little was not on medicine, but at the rate that he requires new sippy cups of milk, it sure felt like it.

With all of the juggling of trying to live between two states while also packing for and remembering who needed what when and how much and how often and who needed morning doses and who needed night doses and who needed mid-day doses and who needed to eat with their dose and who needed to not eat with their dose and who was recovering and who was still having issues and on and on and on… I felt like a nurse at a crazy house—or rather like I could have been a patient in one. BLESS.

I don’t know if you face this, but medicine is always easy to take right at first. You are miserable and needing it desperately, so it’s never far from your memory. You cling to it and look forward to the next opportunity to see it work its magic on whatever symptoms you’re facing. But a few days in, the medicine starts to do its job, and the symptoms aren’t as obvious. You’re getting better, and before you know it, the daily dose slips your mind. And then you realize you didn’t finish that whole round of antibiotics, and maybe you’re better, but not fully well.

The follow through. It’s definitely an area with which I struggle. How many unfinished books are put away in my nightstand? How many diets have I failed to complete? How many projects were envisioned but not brought to life? And this is a principle that easily carries over into my spiritual life as well. Because when God calls us to something, it’s fresh. It’s new. We are desperate to see Him work and move in our lives. We are excited to embark on the journey to which we are called. But then life happens. And we start to think we’ve got it on our own. And before we know it, we’ve missed our daily dose of Him. And maybe in that area He is working on, we’re better, but not fully well.

I think I have concluded my own diagnosis on this issue in my life. I struggle with the follow through because I am incapable in my own strength to fully follow through. And what’s worse, I am guilty of believing that my “recharge” comes from moments of downtime where I am vegging out on Facebook or Netflix or Pinterest or silence. But the bible tells us that those who wait on the LORD will renew their strength. Not those who wait for their evening scroll time or endless Netflix episodes. The Lord. So it’s no wonder I find myself a basket of nerves struggling to keep all irons in the fire ablaze. He alone is my strength and my shield. The One from whom my help comes.

And so today, I walk forward with renewed perspective. May I look to Him as my strength. May I allow Him to renew me when I need it most. May I work to prioritize my awareness of daily, sometimes minute by minute, dosage of the Father. And in doing so, may I see myself soar on wings like eagles, walk and not faint, run and not grow weary…