As the world spins

Remember when you were a kid and it was fun to spin yourself around and around until you started to feel a little dizzy?

That off balance feeling left you walking with a wobble, your steps so askew that you sometimes fell down but it still made you laugh.  Being dizzy as an adult proves not to be as much fun.

It reminds me of that old song from the late 60’s, Dizzy.  “I’m so dizzy my head is spinning.  Like a whirlpool, it never ends… you’re making me dizzy.”

I’ve experienced dizziness, having my equilibrium out of sync, a few times and it definitely lacked fun.  Once everything spun around me with so much force, it felt like I was strapped into an amusement park ride called the Whirling Dervish and I couldn’t get off.

Another time the dizziness adversely affected my stomach, which started to churn faster than my new Sunbeam Mixmaster on high, and I turned a most unlovely and unhealthy-looking shade of green.

It’s incredibly hard to keep your balance when you’re feeling dizzy and your equilibrium is off-kilter.  And balance is something we need in life.

We try to eat balanced meals.  We balance our checkbooks.  We wish our government would balance the budget.

We balance home life with work.  We balance leisure time with busyness.  We attempt to keep everything in balance.

Often, I even must balance my old washing machine, which sometimes spins itself into a sudden, jolting halt because the load of clothes has shifted off to one side.

Last week I struggled to keep life balanced.  I worked many more hours than usual at my job.  Early risings and longer car trips knocked my schedule out of whack.  So many things needed my attention but my time was limited.

By evening, mind and body were exhausted but other commitments existed, and I was forced to keep going and going like the Energizer Bunny, except I was feeling anything but energized.

Laundry piled up, the dishwasher overflowed with dirty dishes, and my home chores all were relegated to the back burner.  And I didn’t have any time to spend composing any blog posts.

All of that caused me to feel unbalanced and my dizzy world felt out of control.  Some wise person once said, “The key to keeping your balance is knowing when you’ve lost it.” 

As I was leaving my chiropractor’s office in the middle of my lop-sided feeling week, my doctor threw this word at me:  homeostasis.  An online dictionary defines it like this: “The ability or tendency of an organism or cell to maintain internal equilibrium by adjusting its physiological processes.”

How did he know I felt like my life was spinning out of control so fast it was sending me into a tailspin?  I hadn’t said a word about that and I wasn’t literally dizzy.  I was startled, so I repeated, “Homeostasis?”

“Go home, look it up.  Hey, you could write a blog about it!” he replied.  (He reads my blog, views my photos, and mentioned that I hadn’t posted anything that week.)

Believe it or not, I already knew what the word meant; that’s why I was startled. Could he read my mind?

The more I thought about this condition, the idea for a blog started forming in my stressed out brain.  But not enough time to write caused me to quickly jot the idea down in my ‘idea notebook’ to be revisited later.  When things became balanced again.

My balancing act still didn’t stabilize.  After some sleet/snow/rain combination hit our area last Friday, I found myself totally losing my balance – literally.

On my way to my car, I stepped off a sidewalk and slipped on the icy surface of a parking lot.  My feet flew out from under me and I fell in a most unladylike fashion on my behind!

Let me just state that being unbalanced sometimes really hurts!

But being a bit stiff and sore caused me to slow down, take some time to rest, and hence, find a little bit of time to pull my thoughts together and write this post.

As usually happens when I set aside some time to ponder, my thoughts remind me of scripture.  So on this day, as unbalanced as it may seem,  I will write it on my heart that it is the best day of the year.

Because I know who balances my life.  I know who keeps me upright and steady even when I feel wobbly and shaky.  It’s the One who is written about in Isaiah 40:11-13.

“He tends his flock like a shepherd:  He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to His heart;   He gently leads those that have young.  Who has  measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, or with the breadth of His hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance?”

The same God, who holds this spinning world balanced in His mighty and capable hands, holds me steady as well.

©2013 mamasemptynest.wordpress.com