"Do not grow weary in well-doing, for in due time you shall reap if ye faint not."



I confess, I am very weary of well-doing. I am just tired of it, all of it. I used to take great delight in how much we had reduced our garbage output since we moved home from Asia. I used to love to find the empty shampoo bottles in the shower because I could throw them in the plastics bin in the kitchen and feel virtuous. I used to carefully rinse every bottle of ancient-almost-gone salad dressing that had lived too long in the refrigerator door and add it to the growing collection of cans, jars and occasional soda bottles that I knew would be carted to the recycling center and tossed on the big heap every second Saturday. Now, I just want to toss it in the garbage can and make it go away. I am tired of the overflowing bins in the corner of my kitchen (the recycling center inconveniently closes for the Christmas AND New Year's holidays, just when we most need it.) I take no secret pleasure in deconstructing Pringles cans, separating the cardboard cylinder from the metal ring. It just looks like garbage to me now.



I am tired of the endless rounds of creams and lotions that I used to slather on my aging skin, hoping against hope that in due time I would reap some benefit from them, that the law of sowing and reaping would somehow trump the laws of entropy and aging. I can scarcely believe I once enjoyed lining them up carefully on the counter top before I stepped in the shower - the thick moisturizer and the sunscreen, the specially formulated eye cream, the lip moisturizer, the body oil, the special cream for dry elbows, the oil for my legs, the balm for the heels which were constantly on display in sandals when we lived in the tropics. Now it's all I can do to remember to apply the all important anti-perspirant. I'm just tired of it.



I used to look forward eagerly to my daily walk - the chance to clear my head, to break a sweat, to feel like I was growing stronger and healthier with each step, the challenge of covering more ground in less time each day. But these days the cold weather feels like a barrier erected at every doorway of my house. The biting chill and the hard cold scratch my throat and sting my nostrils when I do manage to put on enough layers to venture past my driveway. My clothes are heavy, my thick socks make my boots feel confining and unpleasant, I feel like I can't ever get a really satisfying breath because my lungs are tight against the cold. I wheeze and cough. I am tired of making myself do this when the pleasure is gone. I have grown weary of it.



I m weary of grocery shopping and bargain hunting, of buying clothes for my kids and of folding clean, fresh smelling laundry. I begrudge the trips to the produce store that I used to love, and I let the towels pile up in the bathroom hamper. I can't find boots that fit everyone, while all my kids friends' are happily ice sakting I can't muster the energy to shop for one more piece of winter sporting equipment. My eight year old has asked me many times in the last few weeks, "Is this the dead of winter?" and while my mind has consulted the calendar and answered, "No, that is probably still weeks away . . . ." my heart has sunk under the question. The very metaphor depresses me. I'm just weary.



Is it winter? Is it age? Did I just have too many children for my personal resources? Is it the after Christmas slump? Will I feel better when the days grow longer as I know they must? Will I ever have any motivation again? I don't know - how could anyone know? I want to follow the example of Father Abraham, who hoped against hope, who considered the deadness of his own body, but still grew strong in faith because he believed that God was faithful. I want to fix my eyes on the joys that are still before me, I want to save the earth and reduce my risk of heart disease and stroke. I want to regain some motivation for this everlasting well-doing. But until then, I need to strap on my snow shoes and put one foot in front of the other and make d0 with the shallow breaths I can take. I hope to faint not.