#thefives

Angel: You haven't had a good night's sleep is all.

Me: Facts

Princess: Oh. Paw-lease. Your eyes look so dead, you could kill somebody.

Me: *le groans*

Angel: *Snickers*

Princess: *Glares at Angel*

Me: Well, if looks could give money, I'll be a millionaire.

Princess: Yeah right. Your looks will scare away the investors.

I deactivated my Facebook account exactly one week ago.  I’m still not missing it.  In fact, I’m feeling rather content.  There was one moment that gave me pause a few days ago, however...  A weight loss challenge group I’m in (think Biggest Loser) has a grand prize of almost $3000, and I did have a slight freak-out that I had no chance at that huge chunk of change.

And then I got over it.  I just don’t have it in me right now to commit to that.  I’ve signed up for a prayer challenge that starts on October 2nd to commit to praying for one hour every weekday morning at 5am, and that’s about all I’ve got left at this stage in my life.  It’s been a very hard year.

I know for absolute certain that my depression, sadness, anger, frustration, etc. are all because I’ve been completely disconnected from the Source of Life.  My Creator, my Redeemer.  Having two kids under the age of four is tough.  And it’s made even tougher by the fact that I have lost my way.  It started out by just being plain tired.  I shifted my energy to my job in data entry and my job as a mom and shifted it away from my job as a wife and a daughter of the King gradually so that I barely even recognized myself.

A few weeks ago, I had an epiphany that started the process of waking myself up.  Now, to be certain, I had not been focusing on the month of Elul.  I had been ignoring the calls to self-inspection that were sounding all around me so for this thought to come to mind could only have been from the Most High.  I forget the exact circumstances, but I found myself thanking Him for yet another financial blessing.  I didn’t have time to pray and connect, but I certainly had time to give thanks for the physical things and ask for help to get out of a jam.  As though He was some sort of genie (perish the thought)!  I heard a question in that still-small-voice kind of way: have you gotten any spiritual blessings lately, though?

This stopped me dead in my tracks because I knew in an instant that I was spiritually bankrupt.  Void.  Empty.  Dead.  I had all these creature comforts around me, and yet my spirit was dead.  Was it really such a blessing??  Absolutely not.  We hadn’t sounded a shofar in our house once, but this was like a shofar blast to my soul.  Was my reawakening immediate?  No, sadly.  But it did start, and I’m very grateful for that.  I decided to do the little things I could to try and claw my way back to my Elohim.

So I’ve been a little more diligent in singing the shema to my boys at bedtime.  I’ve tried to remember to thank my Creator for waking me up before I stumble out of bed before the crack of dawn.  I have a goal to bless His Name just one more time throughout the day than I did the day before.  The mark is missed more often than not, but it’s fresh on my heart and in the front of my mind.  I will progress.

I got an invitation to do this prayer challenge again (I did it last fall at around the same time), and I jumped on it right away.  I’ve rearranged my work schedule to make it easier on myself this time around.  I am very hopeful that these small steps, particularly the prayer challenge, will continue to snowball and become not just something I do periodically but all the time.  But because I know myself and how easy it is for me to get overwhelmed lately, I’m not going to think that way just yet.  I’m going to take this one day at a time, one victory at a time.