the spacious place

Yesterday was a Bad Day.

Nothing particularly bad happened, but the whole day was rotten. I felt terrible, with a migraine and a sick stomach, and a bad reaction to some medicine that left me feeling groggy and achy and pitiful. I needed my children to be silent and still. They weren't. Every noise, every bang or crash or yell or cry or whine produced within a fifty-foot range was instantly on my nerves. I was short-tempered and ungracious. And no matter how many times I took a deep breath, asked God to change my attitude and put a guard over my mouth, it didn't take. You know how sometimes, your child is just kind of a pill, for no good reason? Yesterday, that was me.

It didn't get any better, and I put the kids to bed cranky, and Eli was up SIX TIMES during the night with the most ridiculous "needs" (I saw a baby squirrel in my room! I need a tissue for my boogie nose! You made me feel sad yesterday!). At one point I actually sat down on the edge of the bathtub (during his third middle-of-the-night attempt to poop), and started bawling. "You're not letting me sleeeeeep!!" I wailed. To my three-year-old.

But this morning, as I dragged my weary self out of bed and hauled Eli off to school, I was reminded of a favorite verse in 2 Samuel: "He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delights in me." It dawned on me that, seemingly out of nowhere, I feel better.

I'd been walking through this dark, dry, desert place for so long, believing and knowing that God was working, but not feeling it. I knew that eventually, he would bring my emotions and sense of well-being into alignment with the truth he was teaching me - that how I feel would catch up with what I know. And you know what? He has! I am beginning to see the fruit of all he has been doing. I am actually able to look back - which means, I have moved forward. Out of the desert. He has brought me out into a spacious place. I can breathe. I can rejoice. Heck, I can dance like a crazy person. There's plenty of room.