I had a breakdown this week. No, not a take-to-the-bed-and-not-come-out-of-the-house breakdown, just a mini one. I’ll tell you all about it in a minute, because it turned out to be kind of funny, even while I was feeling “up to here with everything”. You know how that is? There are times when I have so many things to do and so much juggling going on, that if just one more little thing happens it feels like the whole thing is going to come crashing down on me. That sounds like an exaggeration, but it doesn’t feel like it! Ever feel that way? Let me tell you what happened…

 

We finished up our homeschool year and have just made a big shift in our homeschool team. It was a delicate situation, but the kids have been transitioning well, even though they weren’t completely happy about it. I’ll say this: we did a lot of praying and some fasting and more praying to get through this. And God worked it out perfectly. But until it was worked out, it wasn’t. And that was stressful. So we have someone new in our home working with the kids. I’ve been working on a talk on “Food As Medicine” to present at the end of this month. Also, our end of the year ballet recitals are happening for the three girls (this means lots of work on lots of hair. If you’ve seen mine, multiple it times three).  I’m also on call overnight twice. And my husband is planning the church service and my oldest is going to sleep away camp (which means shopping and packing and driving). All. In. The. Same. Week. This was going to require some serious planning. And y’all, I tried to look on the bright side. I really did! I thought, “It’s ok, I have the day after call off and it’ll all work out fine.” You ever do that? Just will yourself to be fine? Yeah, that doesn’t work.

 

With all this going on, I thought that I might have to miss a post this week. But I’ve done 44 posts in a row and I didn’t want to ruin my streak. So I decided that this would be a good week to post a recipe, something simple but good. So I planned to post my favorite juice recipe! I had all the ingredients in the house, so I figured I’d make it, take pictures and write a short blurb about the benefits and be done. Before I made this plan, my husband asked me if I’d prayed about whether or not to write this week. And I had and I knew I was supposed to write, but I wasn’t sure about what so I brushed him off. Whatever – gotta get this done.  It was late, about 930 after I got the kids to bed after church and I was rushing.  I got my things together and started taking pictures.

 

 

All ready!

 

Everything looked great! I started juicing the carrots, beets and the apples, alternating the hard and soft veggies. I threw in the ginger and finished the apples. I had a couple of carrots left, so I decided to clear out the apple pulp with the carrots. I mentioned it was late, right? I was so tired, I didn’t notice that the carrots I had were bigger than usual. I never cut them up, because they fit right through the chute. But the last two were just about the same diameter as the chute. You can imagine what happened next…

 

Completely stuck. Grrrr…

 

I pushed that carrot right into the tube and that’s where it stopped. I couldn’t pull it out and I couldn’t push it back up, even once I took the machine apart. I tried to cut it up with scissors. I put my corkscrew into the carrot, but it just wouldn’t come out. It was pretty clear in my mind that I’d broken an expensive juicer, and that I wouldn’t get my post done. That was it. I was done. I sat on the floor in my kitchen and cried, juicer pieces in my lap. It was a pitiful scene, I’m telling you.

So I called my husband, who was still at church finishing up a meeting for the service he’s planning. And to be totally honest, I was furious at him because he wasn’t home to help me out of this mess. He patiently listened to me tell my sad story, then offered some ideas of how he might help (something about his drill) and reassured me he was on the way home. After I hung up, I took a step back and looked at how ridiculous this whole thing was – I was crying over a carrot stuck in a juicer! I started giggling through the tears. Of course, that’s not really why I was crying. I was crying because I was overwhelmed. I was crying because I was tired. I was crying because things weren’t going my way. And I was crying because I was trying to do everything that I thought needed to be done without taking the time to be still and listen. I hadn’t spent as much time in meditation and prayer in the mornings, and I wasn’t sleeping enough. So I ended up in a puddle on the kitchen floor, laughing and crying at the same time.

 

I got up. I figured if he was coming with a drill, I’d work at the carrot until he showed up. The scissors triumphed over the carrot and I finished the juicing just before he walked in the door.  I was chatting on the phone with one of my midwives when I realized I had an assignment due for a meeting the next morning. By now it’s 1030 pm, past my bedtime. Oh well. It is what it is. I cleaned up the juicer parts and got out my laptop.

 

Juice making…

 

Here’s what I learned: when I try to do it all, I’m going to bump my head and that hurts. Everyone gets the same 24 hours a day, but I don’t have to do everything in the same 24 hours (even if I want to!). If I stay up late, I need sleep the next day and maybe I won’t exercise that day. That’ll have to be ok. I need stillness and time hearing God more than anything else I do, and if I don’t get that, well, not much else matters. The things that need to get done will happen, but they’ll happen well when I stop trying to make it all go my way.

 

 

That’s all I’ve got this week. How about you? Ever had a time when you had a mini meltdown? How’d you get out of it? Please share in the comments below!