I made the mistake of stopping…..
All of the sudden I felt my feet start to sink, the oozing of the gumbo mud was creeping higher and higher over my boots, I could feel the mucky mire actually suck my boots into itself and then the sensation of mud climbing over the top of my feet.
I could no longer lift my feet up to keep walking.
Carrying a Rubbermaid tote of firewood, I tried to move my feet, first the right and then the left. Nothing. I was stuck in my spot not able to move to the left or right, nor the front or back.
I tried to call out to Brian to come help me but the noise of our generator is deafening and no one could hear above that. (Our good generator is broken again at the shop awaiting parts that seem to be coming from the ends of the earth. Prayers for the parts would be appreciated).
Standing there weighing my options, it looked bleak, in all honesty I felt bleak, and I think it was at that moment I gave up, it had been a discouraging day, well week, already. We had a fair list to deal with: the good generator being broken, the back up not wanting to start if it stopped, Brians truck is broken, the sewer detached from the trailer at one end as the ground settled, our brand new floor is covered in a film of mud, we have a sink hole where we dug in the water line, Mocha’s paws getting covered with mud and Mocha herself, not being able to get up the driveway so I park 1 km away because of the mud and did I mention the “mud”?
The first option was to step out of my boots and walk through the mud in my sock feet. The second option was to sit down in the mud and have a really good cry. The third option seemed to be non-existent.
Then the anger rose up and I was done! I threw the rubber maid tote of firewood down into the mud, looked up at heaven and yelled at God (because you know that is going to help), “if you want me to have a fire, You bring in the firewood!”
I would like to tell you that it helped, but it did not, I would like to tell you I felt better after the outburst but I did not. I was still totally stuck in the mud!
I bent down and worked at my boots one at a time to try to unsuction them from the mud. I almost went for the sock feet option when at last one of the boots moved. After I got one moving, the second was not so bad as I then had momentum.
I slipped and slid onto the deck with at least 3” – 4” of mud lining the outside and bottom of my boots, I am sure I had an extra 15 lbs of mud attached to me. I came in the door explosively and told Brian about my problem. He said he had not heard a thing (which is true), however it was not a good enough answer for me. Why did he not help me? (poor man had no idea I was in trouble, but in my ranting, I did not care, he should have known, no rational thinking was happening on my part, I was stuck in fear, discouragement and despair).
I mean how dumb is that? How can someone else know you are in trouble unless you can actually tell them? Here I was blaming my poor husband for something he did not have a clue about.
As I look at it from a 24 hour later perspective, I realize how silly that was. It did not feel silly at the time, it felt alarming, it felt paralyzing, it felt helpless. Fear does that.
I am not sure how to explain our mud situation to you. Many of you already know about the mud as you are living in it as well. You know what the problem really was? I did not want to be living in it – period. This is not what I envisioned as my wonderful “retirement” years, and that is NOT Brian’s fault.
Brian calmly explained to me that he works in that mud all day and night long. He does not have a choice, it is his job to walk and move big equipment and walking and driving in the mud is part of it. I actually think it was the first time I thanked him for doing that for us. What a gross job! What a great husband! All I had to do was walk across our yard, he has to walk all over and then with that mud stuck to his boots he has to climb up machines with those slip and slide boots and try to get in and out of machines and his truck without sliding right off.
Being “stuck” is so debilitating. I am talking about all kinds of being “stuck”. People who have experienced trauma of any kind stay “stuck” emotionally until they can get some counselling help or Godly freedom to free them from that trauma. Often we think we should give up.
Being sick or in pain can be debilitating, being trapped in a body that will not cooperate is mental torture, your options are limited as to what you can do, your body actually calls the shots on what you can and cannot do. You feel helpless, trapped and paralyzed.
My brain went into despair and irrational thinking right away, my feelings and thinking did not even make sense, not a good time for anyone to make decisions.
What I realized in my mud dilemma was that I had to choose to stop or keep on going. I chose to stop, and it was then that I was done for. It is the same for any of us who choose to “stop”.
I met a man in the prayer room today who had had an accident where they told him that he would never walk again. He determined in his mind that that was not an option and he willed himself to walk and he did. He determined to not stop, to not give up. Brian's Dad did the exact same thing after an accident, he defied the odds and got up and walked.
Giving up is the same as defeat. The Bible says “I can do all things with Christ who gives me strength”. Philippians 4:13
It does not say some things, it says “all things”. When we harness the power of God, we can become unstoppable. Will it be easy? Nope. Will it be painfree? Nope. But can we do it? Yes.
I am not making light of anyone’s pain or disease or grief or burden, but I am pleading with you to “NOT” stop. It might take all the strength you have left in your body to walk across the yard, but do it.
Once you stop you will get sucked into the pit of despair, sink down into depression and become paralyzed, frozen to that exact spot. Remember at the beginning of the blog when I was blaming Brian and he did not even know I was in trouble? Stopping and blaming is exactly like that. It makes no sense, it is not rational. The very first thing we have to do is tell someone.
Telling someone else when we are stuck is a very rational thing to do, because we might not be thinking clearly. Telling someone else gives us a partner, someone else to listen and help us to show us that we are not alone. Telling someone else who can pray for us is an essential part of getting unstuck. Telling God we are at the end of our limits is totally a must, He can take it and He knows it anyways.
God says that, “He will never leave us or forsake us.” Deuteronomy 31:6
No matter how far down we have sunk, how much mud is on the horizon, or all over you, it is not the end of the story. The mud season is exactly that, a season. It will end. All seasons evolve into the next season, and when we know that there will be an end, we can handle the muck and mire we are in today.
Hang on, hold tight and tell someone else what is happening. Pray unceasingly to God and ask Him to show you where He is in the mud of your situation right now, chances are, He is holding you and leading you to the other side, He has never left and He does not intend to, but in our pain and stuckness we cannot feel it.
I can almost hear my mom say her favorite line: “This too will pass,” and you know she is a really smart lady.