Dear friend,
He said to them, “Come away into a deserted place, and rest awhile.” For there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat.
I have to tell you something I got wrong. When my mother-in-law was sick, I told my husband I did not mind driving over there four nights a week. I did mind. I minded a lot, and I let it sit in me until I snapped at her over something small, a blanket folded wrong, and then cried in the car about a blanket. She never knew. He did, and I made him carry the part I should have just said out loud from the start.
I keep thinking about how caregiving for someone asks you to be steady on the outside while something else is happening underneath, and how long a person can do that before the underneath leaks out sideways instead of straight. Mark 6:31 has been on me this week. He tells the disciples to come away and rest a while, and they had not even eaten. Rest gets offered before the exhaustion is fully named. Nobody had to prove they deserved it first.
What is the underneath part you have not said out loud to anyone yet?
A prayer
God, You see what she is carrying that no one else has weighed. Give her rest before she has to earn it, and let her stop pretending the weight is lighter than it is. Amen.