WHOA! I Kept Going

It's no secret that I have had a very busy year. I don't do a lot of sharing of my personal life other than the pictures of my family, my husband and an occasional shout out to a love one or a flirty note to my honey. But it has been really busy especially the last 90 days or so. The obvious is I got married. Andre and I have a combination of 4 kids total 25, 20, 15 and 8.Three boys and one 15 year old girl. That dynamic alone is interesting to say the least. Andre has had to get used to how teenage girls behave and getting along with my kids dad. I have had to get used to a little person in the house and,although we have never met, being civilized with his youngest child's mom.We are getting used to sharing space with each other and disagreeing in a way that is productive for us when it is all calm again. That has basically been my life until about a month ago. Things escalated a bit in our household to where we had to be more aggressive about some things and we had to spend unnecessary money which anyone that knows me knows I hate spending money but I did some fussing and kept going as usual. Then my parents called me about one of my little cousins that had been very sick battling diabetes and it was not looking like she was going to make it. I kept going. On top of all of that this was the year for the Semi Annual Womens All Night Prayer Retreat and I had not put everything all together for it or even felt confident in the material. I kept going. So on Thanksgiving weekend we were told that my cousin was non responsive and they made the decision to remove her very young 33 year old self from life support and let her go in a peaceful way. The day of myself and as many family and friends that could handle it stayed in the room with her until she went. I have NEVER done that before but I just didn't feel right leaving the room. I kept going. The following week on Friday I lead the All Night Prayer Retreat from 10p-4a went home took a nap and went to my cousins funeral at 11 that I also had to sing at. I kept going. The next week Andre and I got some resolve and actually a win in our situation but I ended up blowing up about the way things were handled or agreed to. I kept going. For about a week I started to feel a bit out of it,my heart was racing and my blood pressure was higher than normal.I hadn't been sleeping near enough because there was so much going on, on top of my husband working nights I was restless. Finally, on a Thursday I called my Dad after Andre left for work and told him how I was feeling. After we went back and forth about my symptoms he told me to go to the ER. Long story short I got to the ER and my bp was 180/101. WHOA!!! That night I stayed at the hospital for some hours with my mom, daughter and friend until my bp went down. This is when it hit me how much I had dealt with and suppressed over the last couple of weeks and how much better I needed to do in taking a break,and dealing with whatever was happening. Then I needed to rest from dealing with it. Anyone that knows me would describe me as a strong person. I wouldn't disagree with that too much,but I would disagree with the fact that people don't believe strong people need a break or time to regroup. Not only do others not realize it, neither do the strong people aka me. But seeing my blood pressure that high and thinking I would have to take medicine, or even worse have a stroke, really reminded me of the fact that I do need breaks and have to force in relaxation, and exercise more. Great thing is no meds, and Andre and I exercising together on top of me cutting my salt intake down has lowered my blood pressure to a normal number. God reminded me that I am not invincible and my peace mentally and spiritually directly effects me physically. I can't just keep going and stuff things away. And I definitely can not go without God's guidance and peace. I am not sure who needs to read this to know even the strongest people struggle with emotions and frustrations. I say to you an myself TAKE TIME FOR YOU to rest, heal, and pray. That is the only way to KEEP GOING.