Exhaust Fumes

I'm tired. I'm feeling drained. I'm exhausted beyond thunderdome. And so, what do I do at 8:30 at night? I hit the gym. Now, I was smart enough not to hit the weights. Instead, I hit the bike. As I was peddling, I realized I wasn't doing as much or as intense as I usually do (which to begin with, isn't that much nor intense). And then I began to think about football.

Back in high school, I played freshman football. I think I should place "played" more in italics then anything else. I played freshman football. I was more like 5th string. Did you know, in freshman football, they try really hard to have almost everyone play at once a game. Yeah. Not me. That's how "good" I was. Towards the end of the season, I broke my ankle pretty bad. I like to tell people that I broke my ankle playing football, but truth be told, it was after practice one night. A buddy and I were tossing the football around when I broke it--bad.

How bad? I was in the hospital for about a week, bed rest for about a month, on crutches from Thanksgiving to St. Patrick's Day. I was living with my dad at the time, and he truly did his best to help. But his job was as such that he needed to be at work HOURS before I had to be at school. He couldn't keep taking time off to take me to school. So, since I lived about a mile and a half away from school, I crutched. I crutched on my crutches 1 1/2 miles each way. It was like doing constant bar dips and squats. I lost weight, I toned up. All except my left leg. It was still in a cast. My calf muscle atrophied. The muscle stopped being used and it shrunk. To this day, my left calf is smaller than my right. Always will be. Looking at my calf this evening got me to thinking about football and how things change.

But I also started thinking of something else. I started realizing that in many ways, I was not only physically exhausted but emotionally and spiritually as well. I'm tired. I felt like I might be running on fumes. And yet I press on.

An old college friend of mine is a missionary in the Philippines teaching English. In a blog post, she mentioned how she's been working on becoming spiritual healthy. And I loved hearing that. But she also ha worries to. What if when/if they come back to the States, they lose that spiritual healthiness they've obtained while in the missionary field.

To be honest, I'm worried what if I spiritually atrophy? What if I emotionally atrophy? And I'm tired. There are times where I just want to have the ref ring the bell so I can sit down, have Mickey Goldmill splash water on me, wipe off the blood, tell me how Apollo is dropping his left when he does a right hook and then send me out. Just something. Something...

And then I hear these words...

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

...just tired...gentle and humble sound nice right now. Rest for your souls sounds nice right now...so does easy and light...

Where do you need rest? Where are you exhausted right now? How can you place your burdens to Jesus?