Tired, with Garfield
Posted by Danielle Bean in Family on Thursday, August 07, 2008 2:10 PM
Someone recently emailed me to ask if I ever get tired. The question made me laugh out loud.
I am sorry to disappoint anyone out there who has great faith in my personal indefatigableness, but I have to admit that yes, sometimes I do get tired. Very tired. Exhausted even.
Just yesterday, in fact, I was feeling especially tired. Tired of emails. Tired of dishes. Tired of phone calls. Tired of bickering kids. Tired of needy babies. Tired.
It was during this time, though, that one of the older boys approached me with a favorite comic book in hand. Oh, that Garfield. We never do grow weary of his sarcastic Monday mornings and dietary challenges.
Well, actually, I do. I got over Garfield sometime back in the sixth grade.
“Do you want me to read you some of the funny ones?” my big boy offered.
Actually, I wanted to close my eyes for a minute and think or pray or breathe without interruption.
Sometimes it’s the simplest of acts, the tiniest yeses that we say that are the hardest to choke out. Sometimes, when we think we’ve given every last bit of ourselves that we could possibly give, someone happens along and dares to ask for more.
It’s during tired times that I am most tempted to close myself in—to focus on my own needs in place of my family’s as an act of self defense.
Sometimes this is a very good idea. I am a great believer, for example, in the power of a well-timed nap. But sometimes pulling away only feeds my sense of resentment and entitlement. So much better to embrace my circumstances as God offers them. To say “okay” in all the small ways that add up to big ways. To go with the flow instead of fighting it.
I breathed deep and weakly answered, “Okay.”
And then I listened to a boy who wanted to share Garfield jokes with me. A boy who will someday outgrow Garfield and the desire to share with me every good thing as he experiences it. I listened to Garfield. And it made me smile.
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