The Reserve

Sometimes I have these days where I feel empty, like totally void of any normal human emotions. When McKaylee is having a rough week, she needs me on a level that is almost unrealistic. She clings to me desperately, follows me around obsessively and calls out for me immediately anytime I leave her view. Most of the time I find myself doing everything with her on my hip, her face buried in my chest or on my shoulder, constantly craning her face in mine to remind me that she's in pain. It's overwhelming to say the least. Even at night, as most are sleeping, she's screaming out in pain, tugging at me all night looking for some comfort as we both struggle to find some rest. Sometimes I have to pray hourly for extra patience on those hard days or for the energy to carry her one more step, but God always sustains me. The only problem is my life doesn't begin and end with her, I still have a husband and a son who desperately need me in different ways and on different levels. That's where I start to give out. I feel like I wait all week long to see them and then when they get here, I'm almost too exhausted to give them the energy they need from me. It's this weird feeling of being torn in all different directions and wondering when you're finally going to break. Landen likes to do one thing consistently, talk.... a lot. And he needs me to focus on him, to answer his questions, to dive into the depths of life's biggest mysteries. When he's here, he holds my hand constantly, almost like he's scared to let go sometimes and it saddens my heart to see his desperation. He was once my baby, the child I cradled each night, the chunk I carried on my hip and he got all of me everyday...every ounce of love, attention and devotion. He seems so grown up now and I feel so out of sync with his life and who he is. I've had to pour so much of myself into my little girl as we fight through this cancer together that my son has been growing up without me. How is that fair? And then my husband, my loving and adoring husband who needs me on such an emotional level, the man I've spent the past almost 7 years growing up with. He clings to me as well, and yet sometimes it's just a piece of me and probably not the piece he really needs. It's just made me realize how we are only made up of so much patience, love and goodness, the rest is God in us....shining through. Like a soldier in battle can fight without protection for so long until he falters, but put his armor on and he is indestructible. God has become my armor. I tried to "rebuild" myself with strength and endurance, thinking I could do this on my own, but I have realized how impossible that is. For I have this family, this wonderful and beautiful family that deserve just as much fight from me as I am giving to my little girl. And I can't do it, without Christ by my side filling my reserves each minute, I cannot humanly do it. So I'll humbly take the armor that God has waiting for me and I'll become a warrior in that moment that I need it. You might see me walking down the halls of St. Jude's, McKaylee on my hip, Landen holding my hand and Stephen with his arm around my waist, and if you look closer I'm convinced that you'll probably see God's Hand holding all of us. Leading the way, lighting our path and filling those empty spaces in between. For He is my patience, my rest on a sleepless night, my peace on a day full of screaming, my armor for this battle not just through cancer but through life. He is my reserve.