What's in My Head

We are putting the finishing touches on the old house-cleaning, painting, straightening and polishing everything.  As usual, it's just the two of us, my husband and me, who are doing this labor of love.  Since we've been doing this for nearly 20 years, I guess it makes sense that we would finish this job together.  Every couple of hours or so I have a meltdown and start crying.  My emotional stew is full of ingredients like guilt, fear, excitement and regret which is all simmering together in a spicy base of exhaustion.  I can't help but feel that this is a mistake-one of the colossal variety.  My husband channels his emotions through the manual labor involved.  There are only two days left to see how things all shake out and I am so worried.  I hope it all goes well for Rachel and us, but especially for Rachel.

Yesterday, while feeling particularly weak, one of the other moms dropped by to give us a check for April's rent and we got to talking.  I confided my worries and started to cry.  There are nothing but tears around here lately-I could use them for mop water.  I told her I was praying I wasn't making a mistake, and through her own tears, she told me she was sure it wasn't a mistake because what we'd done, was the answer to her prayers.  They have been waiting years for an availability to do this, but there were never any opportunities.  Every year they'd ask for placement, and every year, they were told there were no spots available-for 8 years straight-until now.  I'm going to take this as a sign that things will go well because this was meant to be.

The Lord works in peculiar ways.  I've always prayed that before I died, I'd get the opportunity to live a little.  Although being a caregiver was a career option, I never expected to be a 24/7 mother for my entire life.  I'm not abdicating my role as Rachel's mother, but I am giving away that (always on call) position as her provider of care.  

It's OK if I live a little, isn't it?