It was one of those days,weeks…okay, months.
My hubby’s travel schedule wasinsanely high and my sons’ healths were extremely low. Add in “life”, and this Momma wasbeginning to feel like I had more than a few loose screws.
For four straight weeks,somebody had something. We almostmade it through the week without one of our kids being sick; the key word beingalmost. On Thursday, the schoolrepresentative called to say that our oldest had a fever. As I raced to collect my little bearcub, I noticed that the “check tire pressure“ light illuminated from my dashboard…and spirit.
My tires weren’t the only thingthat felt a little deflated.
I pumped my 102 degree honeywith some ibuprofen and proceeded to the gas station. As I checked the air pressures of my tires, I found it, myloose screw, wedged into my minivan tire. It’s pathetic to admit that I had an LOL moment there, outside inpublic, about the whole loose screw thought.
Hello crazy lady filling hertire, laughing alone, like a mad scientist.
As I filled three of my fourdeflated tires, I realized that I was in the perfect position, knelt,moderately crazy and desperate. Every day I’m desperate for God, but it takes the loose screw days, toconfirm it. Right then and therewas as good a time as any to talk with God. I used the remainder of the time, to fill er’ up, both mytires and my spirit.
I needed to fill up on God so Icould get through that month, which punctured and slowly deflated the air outof the tire of my life. So withtwo sons inside the minivan and one loose screw Momma on the outside, I talkedto God. God heard my cry for help(Psalm 34:15), cared (1 Peter 5:7), and it filled me with the fullness of God, notinsanity (Ephesians 3:19).
Later that night, our otherson, had a bedtime meltdown of epic proportions. He went into a tearful litany of how so many things were, “Notfair!” He was just overtired andoh, how I could relate. The onlydifference was that I was the responsible adult even thought I really, reallydidn’t want to be. What my sonneeded was the same thing I needed just hours ago, to cry out, be cared for andfilled up. Oh yeah, and his backscratched too.
So I turned off the lights, hoppedinto his bed and gave my son the same gift God gave me earlier, a present and engagedaudience for the next episode of, “As The World Is Not Fair”.
“He makes us lie down in greenpastures”, (err, I mean in a stuffed animal-filled bed) to be refreshed andcomforted (Psalm 23).
Somewhere between finding thatI indeed had a screw loose, and that my son had strep again, I also realized thatrunning on empty is one of the most dangerous places for a mother to be. It’s more dangerous than a half offshoe sale, with cash and a coupon in hand…yeah, that dangerous.
If you’re feeling like me, thatmaybe you just might have a screw loose too, I want to encourage you to checkyour pressure level, don’t keep runnin’ on empty. Fill er’ up to enjoy, not just endure, whatever is causingthe temporary deflation. Godcares, God comforts and God will fill er’ up…whether you have a screw loose ornot!