At the End of Myself

The night started out well enough. I endured the usual bedtime drama routine I had grown accustomed to over the last several weeks, and afterward sank into the couch with my roommates consuming blueberry muffins and blackberry lemonade (the adult version). I was in the thick of the why-did-I-think-I-could-do-this stage. I mean, it wasn't like I was bored. Exhausted might have been a better descriptor. I was working full-time as a pediatric nurse and simultaneously running a small but chaotically busy chapter of a ministry caring for families in crisis. I also didn't know how to say no or "I can't help you," which turned out to be my Achilles heel. Two little girls with nowhere safe to go and no other willing volunteers to host them. So, they were (finally) asleep in beds upstairs and I was drinking hard lemonade. Fist bumps to all the people pleasers and wannabe heroes everywhere.

It wasn't until the middle of the night that I reached the end of myself. Bedtime with two kiddos who have experienced trauma is no cakewalk, but we had endured it and made it to the other side. I fell in bed and woke up some three hours later with my stomach in knots. Uh oh. As my stomach roiled from the disturbance of some nasty virus, I also heard wailing from the upstairs bedroom. Double uh oh. How does one hold her head over the toilet while also comforting the distressed, AWAKE child in the next room? I felt like curling into a ball and moaning continuously, but instead dragged myself from bathroom to wailing child over and over again. I'm sure I prayed for relief at some point, either from the stomach cramps or the wailing disturbance next door. Neither came, though, and my thoughts shifted from "Why did I ever think I could do this?!" to "Dear GOD, I can't do this." I finally pulled the wailing child out of bed and into my arms as I collapsed on the bedroom floor, begging for morning to come quickly.

I've often wondered what would happen when I reached the end of myself...when my ego, pride, and all guise of put-togetherness was stripped away. Naked of these, who would I become? It's easy to be kind and compassionate when you are surrounded by goodness and easy living, but what ugliness would surface when I could no longer hide behind comfort and security? The next morning, after dropping the girls off at daycare as soon as the doors were flung open, I collapsed in my bed again and considered what was left of the Abigail I thought I was after a grueling night of facing my demons alone.

I thought I was doing something good. But why?

I thought I knew how to tenderly care for kids who have experienced trauma. But what if I'm too selfish?

I thought I didn't need a partner to play the role of parent. But are two hands really enough?

I thought Jesus called me to LOVE extravagantly. But is love sufficient to heal ALL wounds-theirs AND mine?

I thought I knew who I was and what I could handle. But maybe...maybe I don't.

I think about that night a lot. I think about what it means to truly love everyone always...even when I feel like I have no love left to give. I think about what my true motives are and what it will take to unveil them. So often, I live the safe and comfortable. I choose the easy road because it feels, well, easier. Every once in a while, though, I decide to take a risk. Sometimes I do so because I think it's the right thing to do, or I want to make someone else happy, or I think I have the resources to take the risk. Sometimes I'm dead wrong and I find myself hanging from the tightrope I thought I could walk. It is in those moments that I find myself whispering, "There you are, Abigail. Nice to see the REAL you. Now let's get to work." Maybe there are worse things than taking the risk (whatever my motivation may be) and finding myself dangling from the tightrope by nothing more than a finger and slither of hope.