I know this is a weird picture. I know you can see up my nose, but I’m showing it to you anyway. Because this is what I look like when I’m healthy. This is me taking a minute before I go on to the next task and saying simply, God, help me.
God, help me to focus and do the work I need to do. Help me give it my all, help me to not get distracted, help me to resist the cycle of comparison, defeat, and laziness.
God, help me to get through the opening of the doublewide stroller, buckling the toddlers, enduring the doctor appointment, unbuckling, buckling and folding back up the stroller again with a peace in my heart.
God, help me to rest these next 10 minutes. Help me to let my to-do list go for just a bit. Help me to pause so I can be better when it’s time to get moving again.
God, help me to be a good friend right now. She needs me to listen more than she needs to hear my thoughts. Help me to be slow to speak, and if the time for words comes, guide me in what to say.
God, help me to be present as I walk around this store. Help me to look up, to smile at those who need to feel some human connection. Help me to be open to it, too.
God, help me to re-set this house a bit. I’m so done with this day, but there’s more to do. Help me to push through so we can start tomorrow off right.
God, help me to cherish my husband right now. I’m tired and feel like I have nothing left to give, but he needs me, we need each other, life is better when we take time to delight in one another.
God, help me to fall asleep. Help me turn off my mind, remind me I am loved in this moment no matter what tomorrow holds.
It’s a pause, it’s a prayer, with no end. It’s a conversation throughout the day. It’s a reminder God is not off in some distant place, but here with me now. It’s a reminder that my life may not be about all about me, but He wants a relationship with me. He did not promise a perfect life without obstacles disruptions, and disappointments. But He did promise a full life. With Him, it is full without being so overwhelming. With Him, there is rest, and energy, and peace. This is me when I’m healthy, remembering to simply say, “Thank you for being a God who is never absent, a God who sees me in the big and small moments; help me do this next one well.”