i guess i have a case of the "new year blahs". i'm having a hard time 1. feeling optimistic, 2. finding motivation to... fill in the blank, 3.deciding on resolutions that i can't with confidence believe i will follow, and 4. not being annoyed by people who are more successful or prone to do any of # 1-3.

i heard someone say that the best advice they had received while in the "waiting to adopt" stage was to "keep living". i know, somewhere, that this is exactly what i should be doing more faithfully, but i suppose right now i just don't feel like it. (that's not a cry for help or suicide warning). i'm just tired. and there's nothing that sounds all that appealing about life besides moving forward, but i don't want to move forward into other things without that one thing that i'm waiting for. so, i guess i'm stuck. exactly where i don't want to be. i'm thinking maybe some zoloft or welbutrin might do the trick. i think there's actually something wrong in my brain. perhaps selfinduced by internalized sadness and disappointment... over, and over, and over again. and something more than january's lack of sunshine. the sun was even shining again today a bit. two days in a row. but it's not shining inside my heart. my heart is in a hole. it's dark there. it wants to take a long long nap.
it wants to hide out for a little while... not have to put a smile on, not have to feel, not have to "do" anything.

i am grateful, truly, for the season of hopeful expectation we just experienced, regardless of the fact that it ended in disappointment. what else is new. but right now, even though a little voice tells me i can still be in that season, it feels artificial to be hopeful again. it feels foolish, like i'm  actually putting out cookies and waiting for Santa Claus. and a teeny bit of fire lights up (faith) that says - "He's coming" - but every part of reality seems to try to stomp out the flame. and my heart, which wants to win the argument, cries out "why does it have to take so long!?"

so please pray for me, friends. (and I know that you are.)
how much do i want to understand what this is all for. why the repetative series of hopes being disappointed. and i do believe that this is not forever, and that God is at work. I believe it somewhere, anyway. I hear the verses of scripture there. but my heart feels pretty numb. so, teeny bit of fire... keep burning... warm up those freezing cold numb parts again... circulate... Lord, let my heart warm up and help me to know, even when i don't see.