5 Tired Minutes

Another Friday.  My gosh, I was just enjoying the post-Thanskgiving, overfed haze of having my husband off work practically all week a second ago, wasn't I?  And now Thanksgiving was over a week ago, and Christmas is barrelling toward me at a furious pace.  But, this IS another Friday, and it's time once again for 5-Minute Friday, a weekly meme of The Gypsy Mama, in which I pause from the rest of life and write, unscripted, without "repetition, hesitation or deviation," for a solid 5 minutes.  The prompt word for this week is "Tired."  It's very apt just at this moment.  It's almost 1:00 AM, I've been doing blog work for hours, and this is the last task of a day that has already ended before I can vegetate for a while and then get some sleep.  So I'm tired, and in that apropos spirit, I begin at 12:45.

I have always hated the *BLARING* sound of an alarm clock with a poweful, burning, seething, all-consuming passion.  When I was a little girl--and even into my teenage years--I would sometimes be mercifully woken up by my father, who knew I hated the alarm, and would give me the dignity of being awakened by a gentle voice and a loving embrace instead.  I would lean on his shoulder, still half-asleep, until he insisted that it was time for me to begin the day's preparations for school.

I don't think I ever REALLY knew tired until I experienced depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (which often go hand-in-hand).  Everything felt like a monstrous chore, an overwhelming task--I wanted to go back to bed just thinking about getting up, showering and going out to face the world.  And in those moments of preternatural tiredness, I thought to myself, "Am I just broken beyond repair?"

Photo by Eric Hill

But in perfect tiredness comes perfect peace.  The ability to rest on the Father's shoulder and just admit to myself that I have nothing under control and "He's got the whole world in His hands," including me.  I'm tired.  Bone-weary, heart-sick tired.  Of funerals.  Of illnesses.  Of emergencies.  Of disasters.  But when I'm that utterly spent, I'm also in the perfect place to follow Corrie ten Boom's life-changing advice--"Don't wrestle.  Just nestle."