Life is full of when I don’t want to moments. House cleaning is high on that list for me. In fact, I’m avoiding it right now. With three kids under 7 in my house, it takes approximately…um…yeah…that long for my house to get unrecognizable.

2012 was one of those years that just getting out of bed felt like more than I could handle. I share because I believe many of you have been there. I had been so physically, emotionally and mentally beat down I wasn’t sure my body could keep going. I felt physically ill every morning waking from my bed but I couldn’t stop. Some seasons of life are definitely harder than others.

Kate at 6 weeks dressed up for a night out in Punta Cana

It started with the birth of our daughter Kate early in the year and the normal joys and burdens that come with caring for a nursing infant. Our second son at the time was battling a severe physical condition that deprived him of sleep and comfort and made easy things like taking a bath difficult. Our business was growing, Alex traveling more than ever (me some with him, Kate took 11 plane rides in the first 6 mos of her life), and we added 5 new staff with a commitment of greater investment.

Also, that summer, I helped my parents relocate to Dallas while my mother became even more weakened and ill. My father cared for her 24 hrs a day. What a fighter she was and what a hero he was. Their needs were great and my heart was so broken for them. She got to graduate in October and we felt the sting of loss.

I was needed. You can’t stop. You keep going. I’m not the only one who has been there and many have been in much worse seasons… 

By the last few days of that year, I didn’t know how to find my way back to healthy. I honestly felt like a few days in a hospital might do me some good, but a day away really wasn’t scratching the surface of what I needed. It was exhaustion and grief. While I had found much relief to the outward circumstances that had ravished my gut, I didn’t know how to fix the path of destruction left inside of me.

The memory of my father serving my mother was fresh. She had served him for nearly 45 years following him around the country for work moves, making dinner every night and raising his family. Now, in her failing health he had been caring for her in varied degrees for the last several years. By the end, he cared for everything she needed when she was unable to get out of bed. Worse than a newborn, he cared for her need all day and all night.

Dad and Mom on their wedding day, June 17,1968

He stood in my kitchen one day while filling up her humidifier which he had done countless times before and said “But I do it as unto the Lord”. Pause. Reread that. His words resonated with me in a way I would not soon forget.

The New Year of 2013 brought a fresh new spiritual beginning for me. As I began to fight my way back, I felt convicted to get up every morning and say This is how I get to serve the Lord today. Every morning when that feeling of I just can’t do this came over me, I would start saying out loud, singing it in a little ditty if I had to, This is how I get to serve the Lord today. It would fill me and begin to change me.

The revelation my father taught me in the past was now in the present feeding me, nourishing me, to heal my insides. And now at this time in my life, I was pulling on that resource for strength.

It was so easy. Loving my family, caring for them, loving His church, my neighbors, my community. This was how I got to serve the Lord. This was how I got to choose Him in the middle of not understanding why but knowing how to keep moving forward.