I just need to load the wagon.

I jumped off the merry-go-round a few days ago.

Just...jumped.

For weeks the hurry and scurry of schedules, deadlines, state testing, and everything else that was somehow sandwiched in between had me spinning...

Faster and faster I spun, with no concrete destination, no end in sight (well, okay, I knew there was an end to most of it but I certainly couldn't see it), and with growing panic squeezing my insides with each subsequent turn.

By late last week my proverbial vision was blurred and all sense of what was up, down, right or left, right or wrong, had successfully evaded me. My internal scheduler went on the blink, my ability to reason and rationalize went on the fritz, and - can I just be real here? - I became one irritable human being.

Sometimes I struggle with just how open to be on this blog. Making myself vulnerable is never comfortable and yet, as a writer, I feel the need (even on this blog that is read by "tens of people") to share truths as I learn them. And the truth I re-learned these past few days is that there is only one place to go when I finally realize that the load is just too much for one lone girl to carry.

Maybe one day I'll learn to leave everything at the Cross before it becomes overwhelming. Wouldn't that be a novel approach?

After several days of feeling faint twinges of annoyance at even the most simple of conversations, the most minute of inconveniences, I began to feel the effects of spinning way too fast for way too long. In the middle of it all, I had an enlightening - although brief - moment of clarity. The common denominator in each situation was <gulp> ME.

That, folks, is tough to admit. But you know what I mean, right? Sometimes we realize we just need to take ourselves out of the equation for a while.

So that's what I did.

I jumped off the merry-go-round.

No emails. No Face booking. No blog reading or blog writing. No phone calls. No texts. I. Jumped. Off.

For two days I stayed as quiet as possible, staying inside of my home and attending to only those things of "hearth and home." As the hours passed and I gradually let go of all the issues, circumstances, and events that I was trying (unsuccessfully, I might add) to micro-manage, I slowly felt my soul begin to refuel. Where I'd felt parched and dry before, new rivers of joy and inspiration began to - little by little - forge their way through until I felt like myself again.

I was behind a fancy Dodge truck a while back. Stenciled in beautiful scripted font, on the tail end of this truck, were these words: "Don't worry about the mules. Just load the wagon."

Now I'm fairly new to this cow girl business and I'm not entirely sure of the meaning. But I do know what I took away from the sentiment. I don't need to know the answers, the reasons why or why not, the endings, the WHATEVER, for every little thing I have going on in my life.

I need to merely load the wagon.

Load it by making sure I'm prayed up. Load it by fulfilling my responsibilities first and my calling next. Loading it by loving the people God has so strategically placed in my life with all that is within me. In the room that's left I can then layer in the extras. When it's full, I need to just accept that it's full. There will be time enough at a later date to load more.

And then I need to relax in the knowledge that I'm not the driver of this load. But, instead, my life is totally in the hands of the only One who knows my past, directs my present, and is already preparing me for my future.

So even though I'm back on the merry-go-round today, I feel that tingle of excitement again as the spinning commences. The thrill is back, the sheer exhilaration of freedom making me want to throw my head back, close my eyes, and enjoy the ride.