Home Alone

Okay, so it is late...very late. I really have no business sitting at my computer. I should be sleeping. My husband is gone, all of my children are gone and I am home alone. I should be elated with time spent in the quiet...should be. It's funny how one day I can so look forward to having some time to myself, I get it and then I am not sure what to do with it.

Here's the thing...I am lonely. May I be very candid and vulnerable? I have been struggling with this for sometime now. I know it may be hard to understand when I am surrounded by little people all day but it is what it is. With all of them gone, these feelings are now magnified.

I am not sure about the root of this...is it an attack from the enemy or is it the Lord calling me to solitude with Him? Either way it is heavy. It is like a weighted cloak. To be really honest, I am not even sure why I am posting this. Yet, there is something to be said about feeling that someone, somewhere might be reading this...someone is listening. Please hear me...I am not looking for sympathy or for any type of response. I just promised myself when I started this blog I was going to be real.

What am I trying to accomplish with the post? I don't know. I just know that in the past when I have started writing, the Lord begins to show me things. For reasons I don't understand, I somehow feel less "crazy" when I put things in writing. I suppose it helps me put things into perspective.

I am feeling incredibly anonymous. I realize that it may be hard for some people to believe, that someone with a personality as big as mine, can feel anonymous but there really isn't any other way to describe it.

Let me take you deeper...if you want to go there with me. I have been married for almost 17 years now. In that 17 years I could on count on both hands how many times I have heard my husband call me by my name and most of those times were in frustration with me. I, in NO way, am looking to disrespect my husband...this has just not been a strength of his (remember the "times of frustration" I just mentioned...I am sure I earned those!). But this has added to the feeling of anonymity.

As I sit here writing this and feeling its sting, I can't help but what wonder how God must feel. How many times have I only called out His name in times of frustration? Oh, I've said His name alright, but how many times has it been in vain? Lord, forgive me...

I thought about going for a run tonight but wondered who would know, for days, if something happened to me...I didn't go. Isn't it funny how isolation begets isolation. (Don't get me wrong, I talk with at least one of my three sisters or my mother almost everyday. In fact, I truly have one of THE most amazing families on the planet. But they all live out of state, so there is no one here to "check in".) I have lived long enough to know that this is just a season. But when you are in it, it feels like an eternity.

I remember, not very long ago, sitting in a corn field in the middle of August singing a song a dear friend and mentor wrote entitled All I Need. It is a song that encapsulates, with simplicity, my utter dependence on Jesus. The chorus sings: All I need...You are all I need...Jesus, Love of My life...You are all I need.

Maybe that is what I need to do tomorrow...find myself in a corn field.