The Caring Heart... Emotional Fatigue

Today's meditation was written for foster, adoptive, and special needs parents, but as I reread it, I think it applies to all parents at one night or another. You reach the end of your rope long before the end of the day, and just feel so desperately overwhelmed. If [or when?] that is you... I hope this helps.

Emotional Fatigue

Dear Lord, My well feels empty. I have to dig down deeper and deeper within to find the emotional strength to keep going. The toll on my body and my heart sometimes seems more than I can bear. It is like a never-ending grief, mourning for these children whose lives can never be what they should have been. I weep that I cannot wave some magic wand of love over them and make the whole and unscarred. It seems so unfair. It is so unfair. I teach them that fair is not equal. Fair is giving each what each one needs. Why can't I seem to give them what they need? Why does it never seem enough? Fill me. Refill me. Take away the melancholy of grief and rejuvenate me with new energy. Give me energy for love and for action and for them. Fill my well. Amen.

Excerpted from "The Caring Heart Speaks: Meditations for foster, kinship, and adoptive parents" by Gail Underwood Parker