Overworked & Worth it All

Overworked is not a reference I typically use.  I go for the more descriptive and dramatic words like “exhausted” when I am feeling overworked.

I’ve been a single mom most of my life.  Raising 3 sons almost completely by myself. Along with the exhaustion of single parenting, of bearing the burden of a task clearly designed for 2, I also chose to be a stay at home, work from home parent.  Thrust suddenly into single parenting when my husband left, I started my own online retail business as well as an in home daycare.  There were many nights I was up til 2 am packaging and shipping products, while the children slept.   Then up at 7 am to start it all over again.

Chauffeur, disciplinarian, hug & kiss giver, bread-winner, home maker, mom, dad, ( I claim both mothers and fathers day by the way!)  appointment maker, appointment keeper, homework nazi, project overseer, clean teeth checker, laundry maiden, tooth fairy, faith leader, manner teacher, “yes, please, thank you, God bless you!”Chief executive boo boo kisser, fever checking, doctor calling, on call in case school calls, driving instructor (God help me!), “Sure I’ll jump on the trampoline with you(get the poise pads)”fun participator, grocery shopping, dinner planning, sandwich maker, lunch packer, not too much time on electronics watcher, story reader,  faith leader, mother tucker in-er, etc.  You get the idea.  #DomesticGoddess ha

I need a nap just recalling it all!

With the beautiful, yet busy days of small children well behind me now ( you start calling them beautiful after they are behind you) I am enjoying the evolution of changing relationships with my 2 oldest being grown and out on their own.

My God has been gently preparing me for new chapters.  Old dreams and desires fires are being rekindled to where I have time and energy to pursue them once again.  I dream about them often (when I take a much-needed nap) and many are beginning to come true.

Yes, I was overworked.  Yes, I prayed for help in a tangible human being to show up, but that was not the plan.  It has only been by the grace of God that I was able to run this race set before me.  He was and continues to be the Ultimate Provider of all my needs and the needs of my sons.

There were many many days of sneaking off to the bathroom to cry in private because I didn’t understand and I raged against His plan.  Many nights I’d cry myself to sleep in the isolation that can be single parenting.

Through it all I have come to know God.  Perhaps that is the most important part of the Plan?    Perhaps all the exhaustion and feeling overworked were in fact the perfect amount?  For it was there I learned of my great need, my terrific lack.  To humble myself and cry out “God, help me!”

This post has taken a trajectory away from ‘overworked’ necessarily so. It reminds me of the perfect Plan and that it was worth it all to bring me to the Foot of the Cross & relationship with Christ Jesus.

via Daily Prompt: Overworked

My Truth

Lately, I have been thinking about how I could write something that people would want to read.  I am a story teller.  God has given me what continues to be an amazing story. A story that matters.

In thinking about what it is I know, that someone else may not know,  and even more so, would want to read about, and I keep coming back to this: ‘Write what you know.’

What I know is my own story.

For instance, the places I have fallen and those I still stumble over daily.   The victories I celebrate.  How far I have come. How scary the road ahead can seem when I take my eyes off of Jesus. How I struggle in my faith walk. and the things I wrestle with.  Facing the reality of youth mispent. Buried dreams and heart desires that have now caught fire and feel overwhelmingly attainable.  Reignited passions. And hope.  Hope of what my life might look like beyond an empty nest.

These are the things I write about in my personal journal.   Many familiar, most I am blindly finding my way through.

For me it feels like putting myself out there in the only way I know how, which is in the telling of the story God has given to me.   My truth.

It’s always scary to be vulnerable and risk rejection.  But for me, it is now scarier not to!

Funny how middle age has a way of scaring a life in to you!

My hope is that this will be a bright light to dispell the darkness, both in my own heart story and yours.  That courage will replace the false evidence that fear so willingly produces to accuse and paralyze us.  You know, those lies designed to keep us from realizing our God given potential and purpose.

So, this is my table.  I am inviting you in. It has A LOT of crumbs on it & just ignore that stack of papers (I’ll get to them). I require kindness, encouragement, and truth with grace and love.

There are plenty of mis-matched chairs, please pull one up and let’s talk.

Pam 7/14/16

 

Via Tenth Avenue North

Shortly after I had met Jesus Christ,  I began feeling  a strong conviction, like never before to be all in or all out.  Conviction that I was walking with one foot very firmly planted in the world and only occasionally dipping my baby toe in the Kingdom pools when it suited me.

It was 2010 when I made the decision to be all in.  It was then I became very intentional about listening to christian music.  I fasted completely from secular music for quite some time.

WJTL in Lancaster, PA. was the station I started listening too.  The music and song lyrics were ministering to me powerfully as I began this commited journey with Jesus.

One song in particular was “You are More” by Tenth Avenue North. It  seemed to tell my story.

       “There’s a girl in the corner,  With tear stains on her eyes. From the places she’s wandered, and        the shame she can’t hide.. She says ‘How did I get here?  I’m not who I once was..”

Being a rock n roller in my previous life, I had been to a ton of concerts. Imagine my surprise when I began hearing on the radio that christian bands played concerts too.  Low and behold “Tenth Avenue North” would be coming to Hershey in the fall and I wanted to go!

I mentioned going to the concert to several of my bible study friends and as folks often do, they all seemed excited until it was time to buy tickets.   Then it was crickets.

No one would commit to going and the day of the concert had arrived.  I had not purchased a ticket.  I had no one to go with and I was admitedly pissed about it.

That Friday afternoon, at 2:15 pm, I was outside  pulling weeds to prep my gardens for winter.  Down on my knees in the dirt I was having it out with God.  I told him:  “Look Lord, I really wanted to go see that band tonight and not one person would commit to going with me. Now the day is here, I don’t have anyone to go with, no money to buy a ticket and I’m tired of complaining about it.  I don’t even know if I could still buy tickets? I;m releasing it too you because I can’t hold it anymore!  If it is your will that I should be at the concert tonight, well you are going to have to make a way.”

With that, I released it as tears of surrender ran down my cheeks.

For the next hour, I didn’t even think about the concert, my disappoint in my friends or anything else.  I just pulled weeds.

At 3:15 I washed my hands and headed out to the bus stop to meet my youngest son.  Each day I would stop at the mailbox, grab the mail and walk to greet him.  As I reached in the mailbox, my cell phone rang.  I pulled the phone out of my back pocket and saw the name.

It was someone I didn’t really want to talk too, so I immediatly thought of my response when he would ask “Hey are you busy?”  “uh, yeah, I am.  I am on my way to get Thomas from the school bus.”  And here was my out.  So I answered the call.

“Hello?”  playing inquisitive,  “Hey Miss Pamela, How are you, do you have a minute?”  Uh yeah, I am good, busy. Heading to the bus stop. Whats up?”

Phil began telling me about how he had received an email earlier that morning and that he had a buddy that worked for Hershey Entertainment.. The friend had a chance to get tickets.  There was a concert that night.. three bands, “I don’t know if you have ever heard of Third Day, but they are playing and a couple of other bands…and anyway, my friend got 4 tickets for tonight. I am sorry it is so last minute.  He and I are going, and you may have 2 tickets so it won’t be awkward… you can bring a friend.  No strings attached.”

I stopped walking and was fully engaged in listening as tears began streaming down my face.  I realized Phil was talking about the  concert that Tenth Avenue North would be playing that night in Hershey.

While Phil explained why it was so late in the day that he was calling, he said that he felt God told him to “Invite Pam Cruz” when he got the email that morning, but he didn’t want to call me.   Then  after my name was brought to his mind repeatedly that day, he decided he’d better call and invite me.  Thats when I shared with him  my prayer of surrender that I’d prayed only an hour earlier out in the garden.

God had began answering my prayer before I even prayed it.  

That night when I got to the concert.  We were in the club level seating and I sat in the second row worshipping God with thousands of others in utter awe!  I had no idea such a thing existed!  People with their hands up high publicly praising the King of Kings!

Tenth Avenue North was ah-ma-zing! I was giddy of course! I wept.  I laughed.  I clapped and praised God.

After Tenth Avenue North was finished playing,  I could have left. I was content!  Then I ran into a friend of mine who had been volunteering as a runner for the  radio station.  She shared excitedly  “I was just in catering and I saw Mac Powell.”  To which I responded  “Who is Mac Powell?”

That answered prayer has changed so much in my life.    Stay tuned there is so much more to this amazing God story.

Why Not Believer

Funny Face: Owed to Robin Williams

“You are so funny”. You always make me laugh” these are just a few of the things I have heard throughout my life regarding my quick wit and sense of humor. But as I awoke this morning to the rain beating on my window pain, I was promptly reminded of the depression I sometimes live with. It felt heavier this morning as I remembered yesterday’s tragic news of the sudden death of Robin Williams.  I don’t say ‘sudden’ lightly, because I know only too well  the reality of living with addiction and depression.  In my opinion, addiction is simply a more painful, drawn out, slow form of suicide.   Active addiction is not living, its more like an exhausting mode of survival.  

During the active stage of my own addiction, I was unaware of depression.  Drugs, alcohol, relationships, etc. were what I used to keep myself numb.  With the constant availability of those devices, it became more normal to just be numb and unaware.  Recovery often hurts! So much so that many simply cannot do it.  Suddenly sober and having to feel EVERYTHING I had been numbing, almost felt at times as if it would be too much to bare.  Statistically only 6% of those souls lucky enough to find the rooms of AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) will actually have long term, lasting sobriety. A staggeringly sad reality of how hard recovery can be.  

For myself, it’s been 20 years of thawing from all I had numbed.  I’m still uncovering deep layers that have been buried because they were just too painful to excavate in early recovery. Staying sober for me means getting real with Pam, facing ALL of my demons, both real or perceived, and figuring out what is truth vs. what is perceived. 

Underneath the painful denial, and lying on the path of my history, was a battlefield of the wounded.  I was often a steam roller barreling through the lives of others in my desperate attempt to be okay, to ‘feel’ accepted.  My point here is that recovery is hard.  Facing what I’ve done, facing what I’d become as well as facing those I’d hurt, could easily become too much.  Where turning back to denial & numbing becomes very enticing in its promise of comfort in the sick familiar.   I am always just one drink away from total destruction.  One lie of self deception can be the bottle opener to that drink.  I don’t take this lightly.  

Which brings up another staggering fact about the disease of alcoholism.  It is a progressive disease, meaning  if I were to drink again today, within 2 weeks of picking up that first drink, I would be at the same level of addiction as if I hadn’t stopped for the last 20 years. The disease progresses in my brain even though I haven’t had a drop of alcohol in almost 21 years.  I still have recurring  dreams that I can drink normally for a night.  This disease still lies to me.  Just last week I was jogging in my neighborhood, and as I passed the local tavern,  I heard its insidious voice saying “Hey, no ones home, the kids are out of town,  you could go in there and have one or two drinks and no one would ever know! Just think how good it would feel!”  It’s actually terrifying when I realize how close I am to that one drink that could potentially take me down.  Perhaps this time for good.

Don’t get me wrong, as hard as it is, recovery is worth it!  But today, I feel for Robin Williams. Maybe even relate on some levels.  Those demons don’t die easily and often their death needs to occur daily.  

As I shared upon waking this morning, the depression is often there, seemingly waiting for me.  Although I am a funny person whom God has gifted with an awesome sense of humor and a quick wit, who loves to make others laugh, underneath that laughter, if you were to look deeply into my eyes, you might see the depth of sad I carry at times.  Is it the disease of addiction?  Is it the chemical change my brain surely underwent after years of  drug and alcohol abuse?  Is it my demons?  Honestly, on different days, in different seasons, I would answer those questions differently.  Just for today, I am okay.  For it is only by the Grace of my Higher Power, whom I choose to call God, that I am sober today.

In getting to know myself I have realized that my pendulum can swing dramatically one way or the other. I can be super funny and witty, making everyone laugh, then jump into my car and cry the whole way home.  My sense of humor is the gift that has helped me to survive a challenging, sometimes painfully hard life.  I guess my point is this, just because someone is funny, doesn’t mean they go home lighthearted. 

I was just a young girl when Robin Williams came to fame as Mork from Ork.  He is someone whose improvisational, comedic genius may never be surpassed in my lifetime.  My heart aches today at this tragic loss.  Way beyond the obvious void that is left in this world that only he could fill, is the painful reality of how many of us suffer in silence, wearing a mask of funny that hides broken hearts and pain and addictions and battle scars.  Funny doesn’t always equal happy.

I pray this tragedy is not wasted. That it shocks us so much so that we will be kinder and more sensitive to those God has placed in our paths.  I pray my personal struggle offers incite but mostly I pray it offers hope.  Depression and addiction are real and they hurt. They hurt those suffering as well as those who love them.  I pray too for The Williams family during this time.  Let’s reach out and honor one another in great selfless love.  The hurting might be standing next too you making you laugh. Give them a hug ask them, “How are you really doing?”  

Much Love,

Pam

A photo of my “Life Recovery” 12 step bible..It keeps me sober staying in Gods word.