Gasping For Air: How God's Big Gifts Can Go Unnoticed

Dear God,

Since when did parenting become such an uphill battle?

Since when do I scream and yet nobody wants to hear me?

Since when do the people in your life become so numb to one's feelings?

Since when did I become so numb to my own children's cries?

I figure if no one alive is willing to understand me, I know you will.

So how do I turn these stressful moments into beauty?

Every night, I toss and turn, gasping for air. I can't breath right any more. I'm congested with anxiety, anger. I'm clogged, already too full of all that I have to suppress throughout the day, trying to escape me every night. It's nightmarish, the fight to just breath. Such an easy thing, we do it so often we don't even notice it, until we can't do it anymore.

My days are to demanding to even think of rest and at night, my only opportunity to breath has been taken from me.

So God, dear God, how? How do I turn these scary moments into beauty?

Because I feel tapped out.

I'm beginning to feel depleted emotionally and physically. When the day ends I can't even crawl in bed to pray. I have to medicate and cough until some air can enter my lungs. I exhaust myself to sleep, only to wake up to a crying toddler. It pains me that even in a moment of refuge, all I am doing is begging you, pleading for some kind of help. Change me God, change me if I am to blame. Ease the situation for a few seconds to catch some air, to grab a sliver of sanity, to ask Mother Mary how she did it, what do I do?

So here is my moment. This is me up on my cross. Some may pass me by and say, "Deal with it," and I am, in a very bad way.

This is my little/big moment of suffering, where all I can do is go through it in hopes that I can either ride out my sentence in love and forgiveness or fight to remove myself from a situation my very own limbs have been nailed to.

I read somewhere that while on the cross Jesus gasped for air, suffered collapsed lungs, carbon dioxide increase, oxygen decrease, only able to say very little for lack of air and the inability to inhale and exhale due to the position His body was in.

How spiritual, how holy it is to really suffer just a touch of what Our Lord suffered. How He tasted our humanity to be able to comprehend our failures, our afflictions, our fears. To come down and endure human birth to human death, to be able to gently draw us closer to Him, to rest in His arms, to cry on His shoulders.

To know what it is like.

Just to know what it is like and drink it all in for us.

And we live in small worlds where our own know but won't acknowledge, don't care, are too afraid to help, are tired of helping. To pass pain by and pretend like you never heard it, seen it. A cry to deaf ears, a heavy silence after the loud scream, and all of us at one point in our lives have covered our ears and closed our eyes and kept walking.

But Jesus hears even the most silent of cries, the most distant. He heard Zaccheaus' need for a change of heart and Jesus invited Himself in. He heard Mary and Martha's tears for Lazarus and He decided to heed their pain with glory. Even in His debilitated state He heard the pleas of a thief on the cross and gave him the promise of eternal life in heaven.

So Jesus, I ask you now to help me in my time of need. Calm me down, Help me to see what it is You want me to do. You know that I alone won't prevail, but with You in the forefront I can't lose. If You remain in front of me I can't succumb to this situation. I can suffer like You did. Take in all that is going on and find the glory You always know how to insert into every situation. If at the end of the day, I lose all I have, I lose nothing if You live in my heart.

So forgive me if I've done this all wrong. Forgive me for not being able to trust in what You are doing in my life. Forgive me for re-acting and not STOPPING. Forgive me for thinking that I alone can handle this, that I alone can suffer. Forgive me for not calling on You sooner. Forgive me my self-pity, my accusations and assumptions. Forgive me for thinking that others can help me better than You can. Forgive me for thinking that my life right now sucks because I am going through a little bit of suffering, so little compared to the cross. Forgive me for not remembering Your trials and how lovingly You withstood them; how much of an example they are for me as they are my salvation.

And the little energy You have given me to gasp for air and wake up in the middle of the night to hug my child, the next morning to converse with You, ask You for help is more than enough to keep my mouth full of praise and thanksgiving. One day I may not wake up at all.

One more day is a gift, not a guarantee.

Amen to that!

God bless!