Digging Deep

We all know how much we can take.  

You know how it feels to be reaching too much--to much stress, too much heart ache, too much pressure.  You know that desperate and sick feeling that comes with feeling that you cannot take One. More. Thing.  At some dark and discouraging time, you have been there.  You know the place I'm talking about. 

Life in Haiti seems to hang out there.

An increasingly dear and decreasingly new friend of ours was sharing the reality of this yesterday, bringing back countless memories of my own.  

Long, hot days, working tirelessly, often accomplishing very little, often deeply burdened by heart-break around us, often overwhelmed, often desperate for a small relief...a cool shower, a quick email, a short drive...only to realize the generator isn't working, again, so there is no water...so there is no internet...and the car won't start, and the jumper cables were used on the tractor last week and are missing, and there is NO WHERE to go, anyway, and NO diversions or entertainments to take your mind off, if only for a moment, and NO sisters to take you out and NO girls night and NO babysitter and not even a stinking LIGHT works, not even a stinking light, and it's 110 degrees.

There have been some long, hot, ink black nights, with voodoo drums to boot.

and you are at the bottom of yourself and there is simply nothing left and there is no more "hang in there", no more "tomorrow's a new day", no more "try again."  

Get. Me. Out. Of. Here.

And as she shared her very same version, my empathetic soul turned heavenward and I silently prayed: Lord, how HAVE we survived?  How have we not been defeated?  How have we continued, and persevered, how is it that we have even been given JOY?

All I knew to tell her, and all that came back to myself was this simple truth: digging deeply of myself has returned nothing.  

I come from a long line of strong and stubborn women (no offense to you long line of strong and stubborn women.)  I can take quite a bit.   

But when I have nothing more to give, I have nothing more to give.  It's as simple as that.  

When I can take no more, I can take no more.  I have found in myself no beauty, no impressive energy, no great love, no perseverance, no patience, no...nothing good, nothing lasting.   When the heat adds with the culture, a dash of loss and drip of devastating disappointment, piled with the broken, topped with the impossible...I am quickly finished.

All I knew to tell her was to dig deep...NO, not of herself...it's not there.  

But to dig deeply, deeply of the same thing we are here (on earth) to give: the Well that NEVER runs dry, the Bread that never runs out.  

Dig deeply of the Source. 

My answer "How?" is The Source.  Because when I have had nothing left and a mountain ahead and no strength left, I have dug my feet in The Source, and He has not only given what I need, not only carried me, not only granted me survival...but no, God has also given me joy and unexpected laughter, sweet friendship and unmerited witness to miracles, to beauty, to the stuff of His kingdom.

Ah, what a journey it is, not because of where I am journeying, of who we travelers are, or of where it is leading, but only because of the Source.

Don't care who you are, and if getting the faucet to pour water is a big deal where you are or not.  The truth is the same...  

Dig deep, today, fellow travelers.  Deeply today of Him.




(Storm update: tons of rain, cancelled flights, cancelled school...COOL weather!...flood warnings, we're just hanging tight to see and sending everyone home while they can.)