Powerlessness

I often end a day exasperated and feeling defeated. Seeing the backs of my children as they exit a room while I'm still talking is not something I'd see for the next 5 years! Parenting zaps me of energy. I now have a new word for it. Powerlessness.

And it's not just parenting. I feel powerless to get our shipment here any faster. Powerless to keep dust balls out of the corners or crumbs off the floor. Powerless to finish a cup coffee while still hot.

We're learning lots about health food and trying the whole organic natural living stuff, but I want to just be done with it. Check it off and move on. So, I flossed last night... can it just be enough for awhile already? Must I do this every night? I took my fist full of vitamins today. Can I just be vibrant and healthy for a few weeks? It takes all of me to eat my fruits. I have to hide them in a smoothy along with all the other detestable health additives. You'd think I would just down it, but it still takes me half an hour to finish a glass. And despite this new lifestyle, I still feel powerless to stay healthy. It takes too much effort.

So in preparation for Chris starting Mars Hill Grad School and taking his first Dan Allender class, I'm rereading The Healing Path. It's great. And he's the one that gave me the word powerlessness.

"The curse leaves us all powerless to one degree or another. A woman will be powerless in the experience of birthing a new being and in the agony of loneliness that eventually attends all relationships. A man will be powerless in the experience of tending the garden and in the futility of a world that will not easily succumb to his touch."

Yes. Yes! We are both walking through that now. It's lonely to be in between friendships. The long distance ones that are so deep in history and special, but fail to attend to daily life and the new ones that encounter current shared experiences, but are ripe with loneliness that lack of depth causes. And Chris has worked his tail off, forming 2 new companies in the last 3 weeks and starting to pursue business in Turkey while still trying to sell stuff on ebay. The cry of "Someone buy my carpet!" expresses the toil of working in a world that will not succumb to his touch.

Powerlessness is supposed to send us fleeing back to God. That's what Allender says. I'm still not done with the chapter though... All I know is that powerless is my new favorite word!