{matters of the heart} on living

I've had comments made to me a lot recently along the lines of "I don't know how you're doing it," or "I don't know how do everything you do," or "Why are you at work?"

Let me tell y'all how I'm doing it. Jesus. My Jesus gives me the strength to tackle the day, and that's exactly what I do. Then I rest by His grace, and I get up and do it again the next day. Yes, I am absolutely worn out by the time I get home from work every day. Thank goodness for my crock pot, y'all. It's saving my family from another McDonald's meal one slow cooker recipe at a time. Every day around lunch time, I get so weak and tired. Fatigue...just a normal part of heart failure. 

My job alone is stressful - even for a regular person not dealing with heart failure, but teaching keeps my mind off everything. It gives me 78 other hearts to focus on besides my own, and my prayer is that I can teach them so much more than Language Arts. I want them to leave my classroom knowing how to, above all, be kind, and if I can show them the love of Jesus through my love for them, then I've really accomplished something. I can't control my own health, but teaching...that's something I can do. 

The thing is...I have to keep on living. I have moments where I cry it out, moments where I throw myself a full-blown pity party, but I don't live there. I cry it out and move on and keep living. I go to work because it gives me purpose during the day. I go to church because it renews my spirit. I pick Grayson up at school with a smile on my face because he cheers me up like nothing else. Heart failure may be my disease, and it may scare me so bad, but it does not define me. 

Nobody knows the number of our days, but while I'm here, I'm going to make the days count. I'm going to love as much as I can and do as much as I can, in all the time I can. 

I don't know what tomorrow will bring.

I can't tell you what's in store.

I don't know a lot of things.

I don't have all the answers to the questions of life, 

but I know in whom I have believed,

and He knows my name.

Every step that I take,

every move that I make,

every tear that I've cried,

He knows my name.

When I'm overwhelmed by the pain, 

and I can't see the light of day,

I know I'll be just fine

because he knows my name.