I Need Rest - Please!!!!!!!!

Here we go.....

It's late - for me. I'm tired. I can't sleep. And I'm awake all alone. Too many thoughts. Too many emotions. Too many jumbled thoughts and feelings - I can't tell them apart. I don't want to ever sleep. But I desparately need rest. The life growing inside of me is not asleep right now - he's moving and active. I can feel him move.

I look at how far I've come in life - and I wonder if I am the same person. How can someone change so radically and still be the same? Have I really changed - or has life just changed around me? I can't tell.

Maybe it is just my perceptions of myself that have changed. Maybe I am, somehow, remembering the person that I used to be in a light that is not necessarily the clearest. For example, I like to think of myself as being so much nicer in the past - so much more intelligent, so much more put-together, so much better dressed...And then I really remember myself - the more immature, more irresponsible, more naive version of me. So maybe I am changed, but is the core of me changed?

Do you know what I want right now? I want someone to take me in their arms and rest my head on their shoulder. I want them to pat my back and tell me, "Hey, it's okay. I know you better than you know yourself. You're the same old girl. You don't have to figure this out. I know all the answers about you." Okay, yeah, maybe there are people out there who could say this to a certain extent in the physical realm. But, you know what, there is that Voice that speaks to my heart. It's the One saying, "It's okay. You're that girl that I purchased with My Blood. I know you. I made you. You don't have to worry about anything. Put all of that worry on Me. Just relax. I have a plan for you. Just listen to My Voice, and everything will be okay."

God, thank you for knowing me. Psalm 139 keeps ringing through my heart. You "have searched me and You know me." God, "You are familiar with all my ways." God, please just cradle me in Your arms tonight - like a father would his newborn baby. I need Your peace and the rest that comes from You alone.

So I am in a different season of life. I am not the curly-haired little girl; the book-wormy and spit-in-the-face-of-wordly-conventions teenager; the quiet, studious, ever-aspiring-to-be-more-polished young college student; or the work-a-holic, fitness-freak, sometimes-crazy pharmacy intern. I am not even the idealistic, got-life-by-the-tale young bride that I was 7 months ago. I am in a transition state right now. I am transitioning into a role that will last me the rest of my life - that of mother. Oh, yeah, along with daughter, wife, friend, sister, neice...The list goes on forever, baby. And everyone has a demand on me. There are those who say I don't visit them enough. Those who are already saying that they don't get enough alone time with my baby. (Heck, I can't even get alone time with the baby - and it's in my stomach! It's not even born yet, people.) There are people who think that I don't like them - and I don't know why. People who don't like me - and aren't subtle about it. People I am trying to get to know - really know. People that I miss like crazy. And people who I wish I could forget... You get the picture.

I just wish that I could sit with my soul completely naked - stripped of all pretenses and responsibilities and insecurities - and just rest. I desparately need to rest. Maybe I'll try to sleep.

Hey, is it wrong if I hope for another dream about the charming man in the powdered wig with the grilled shrimp? I hope not. I would really, really love some grilled shrimp. ;)