The mental energy required to even consider all of these things...


Well, I haven't blogged in a while. I had a good thing going there, blogging every two to three weeks, which in my crazy schedule is pretty consistent. I was blogging on life, community groups, sermons. I even got a couple of comments (so I know that at least two or more people read my blog). Yeah, good stuff.

But I have been absent from the blogging world these past few weeks. And looking at my life over the past month, one can understand why I haven't taken the time to sit at the computer and type:

~Right before my vacation, I was actually helping run four branches at LUBI. Yeah, four. Because apparently my branch is the only one in the area that can hire, train, and retain staff. Okay, I shouldn't be so hard on them, they've been through some hard times, I know. But come on.
~Then I went on vacation, which was glorious. Laid by the pool, took walks on the beach with my best friend, stayed up late drinking wine and watching Wonderfalls (Tenae is always getting me hooked on these great shows that only ran for a season or two). I was way too relaxed to even think about jumping on a computer and typing away.
~Came back from vacation and found out that I still had to help run those other branches, sending staff away and training new staff at my branch. I love the training part of my job, but it is a lot of work, and I was coming home kind of exhausted. That, and I am getting ready for an audit, which anyone who knows me knows is a cause of major stress and worry and panic.
~Got ROBBED at LUBI. Can't share any details, cuz the FBI is on the case, but understandably a traumatizing experience. This was only my second robbery, and the last one happened while I was in the bathroom. Not this one. This was right in front of me. Experienced the longest split-second of my life. Kind of an emotional basketcase for the rest of the week.
~Same day as the "incident" (that's official LUBI jargon for traumatizing robbery) we received the diagnosis for my grandma's anemia and weakness. She has something called MDS, myo-dysplastic something or other. Basically, it leads to leukemia. So, she has to have chemo-like drugs and blood transfusions and who knows what else to try to keep her cells from developing cancer. Cancer is not a word I have ever had to deal with in my family. Alzheimer's, heart disease, diabetes, stroke, all that good stuff. But never cancer.

So my emotional and mental energy has been a little low lately. And now my family is off to Iowa for three weeks to visit the relatives, which leaves me here with the dog (my dad didn't leave right away with the rest because of work, so I have had a few good days of father-daughter time, which has been a huge blessing, but he leaves this week). I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing-I'm kind of an external processor, and it is beneficial for me to come home and have people to talk to, especially my mom, who lets me blabber on about my work stress and then always has a rational-yet-comforting comment. At the same time, maybe I need some quiet, some time with just me and God, a space where I can't hide behind words but have to be real about how I am feeling. Because God knows, knows better than anyone how I am really feeling. Lately I haven't even had the mental energy to figure that out.

Most of my blogs have some good closing paragraph, some well-crafted concluding sentence that makes a point or makes you think (I hope). That's me trying to be a good writer, I suppose. But today, I have no conclusions, no perspective, no deep, profound pontification. Just me, laid open at God's feet.