Election Day 2020

It’s Election Day 2020 … and the last few days have been an elongated emotional roller coaster ride for me. There has been anger, frustration, joy, depression, sarcasm, hope, fear, tears and general discomfort and unrest. I’ve fallen into one pit, managed to get out, begun to think I’ve got it handled – and tumbled right back into another one. To be honest, I’m exhausted. Not just from all of that. But have you ever noticed that when you don’t know from one moment to the next how you’re going to be thinking … or feeling … that it becomes difficult to sleep? And because it’s difficult to sleep, you have even less control?

Let’s just take today as an example. I finally got some decent sleep last night, after three nights of intermittent dozing, sleeping and lying awake. Because I was still so overtired, I wasn’t ready for the alarm when it went off, and it took me about 20 minutes to get most of the way to awake. We were leaving town for a couple of days, and there was quite a bit of stuff that needed to happen before we left, so thinking of all of that immediately upped my stress level. This morning, my stress was expressed in the form of sarcasm. Not the best mode of communication. Then within about 30 minutes of Steve getting out of bed, while I was still reading my devotions, we discovered that the electricity was out – we hadn’t noticed before that because we have a generator that covers our kitchen and part of our bedroom and bath. So, with no electricity in the rest of the house, some of my plans – like a workout before we left – had to be readjusted (also known as cancelled). This made my frustration level rise a little bit higher.

We reached our destination at about 2:30 this afternoon and immediately shifted into unpack, put away and do laundry mode. (We are at a secondary home we own about two hours south of our main residence). All of that took until about 4:30. It wasn’t until then that we turned on the TV just long enough to hear a whole lot of unknowns and predictions about the election. That kind of thing has always driven me crazy; it frustrates me to hear all these differing ideas, when I know, and they know, that they really won’t know anything substantial for many more hours, perhaps even days. It was at this point I decided my best bet to maintain my own sanity and not completely tick off my husband was to put some worship music in my headphones and go for a walk outside.

I’m so glad I did – it gave God a chance to remind me that although our country goes through this procees every four years, from day one he has actually been the one in charge and that will continue. And, my job is not to run the country! (Thank you, Jesus). My job is to love and care for the people he has placed in my path and to point them toward him no matter their gender, ethnicity, station in life, creed or religion. And that isn’t going to change either, even if the method may shift from time to time. What a relief to recognize once again that it’s those things in my life that give me joy – and they have very little to do with how good or bad I think our government is.

I’m not going to try and tell you that the pits I’ve been falling into have been filled in and will never be a problem again. But – I can say that I’m hopeful those pits are a little more shallow now, and if I can hold on to what I know a little more tightly, I will be less likely to stumble into them, and much more likely to get out quickly if I do. And therein lies a path to more stability and joy.