One Year

Yesterday I woke up from my Sunday afternoon nap and had no clue where I was. At first I thought I was home in New Hampshire. Then Indiana. Then camp. It took a few moments before I remembered. I’m at Grandpa’s. In the guest bedroom. Where I live – and have lived for one year now.

If you’ve read any of my blogs over the past year, you’ll know I don’t like Texas. I despise it even more now than I did when I arrived a year ago (some things do not grow on you). I won’t make out the list of all the whys Texas is so awful. Over the past month, it’s gotten worse. Maybe because it is August and every day is over 100 degrees without rain. Or maybe because brown grass adds nothing to what they have of landscape. Perhaps the things the Lord has brought into my life as late are extremely hard to deal with, I feel confused, I don’t know which direction to turn, and nothing I could say about it would change anything. It could be that next month I have to get the tags on my car renewed. (And unlike every piece of correspondence the state sends me, I don’t “Check the date, love your state”. I renew my tags because I believe laws should be obeyed – period.) Or maybe because in 23 days I will board a plane and see my family – what I wouldn’t give to be on that plane right now.

It’s just really hard to live in a place you don’t want to be. When I drive to church every Sunday, I dart right past the DFW airport. I see the planes leaving and watch them longingly, wishing I was on one of them and leaving never to return. When I drive north, I imagine my car full of my things and dream of driving over the Texas border never to see it again. But over the past year, every plane I’ve boarded has a counterpart. And the one time I drove over the Texas border, a week later tears came to my eyes as I drove right back.

But while I could list complaints until the cows come home, the truth is the Lord has given me ten things to rejoice in for every one I cry over. My tennis skills have improved – a bit. I’ve spent hours with my friend Jenny, whether walking all over her neighborhood, or watching movies, or shopping, or going out to eat. The Lord truly answered my prayer with a good church, where I know all of two people rather well but the Word is preached, the old hymns sung, and fellowship is sweet. Other friends have had me out to coffee, lunch or whatever. I have had a good place to live. And even though I could do my job in my sleep, it is a good job. I get paid well, my boss is good to me, and the people I work with are great, kind, patient, appreciative and have become friends. My writer’s critique group has been an encouragement to me, for even though I don’t have as much time to write as I would like, it spurs me to write something and have a bit of confidence that I can write decently. Besides, it’s nice to spend a few hours with people as crazy as I am. For if it is insane to want something nearly impossible to achieve, then at least I have company in my insanity. It has even snowed! And, every day, I survive. By God’s grace and strength, 365 days in Texas have been accomplished. Not perfectly, but I can stand and witness God’s mercy in them all.

And I can praise God for His promises and reminders that He does have his eye on this little sparrow. A few weeks ago, I was up early and out pounding the sidewalks. (If you want to avoid some of the heat, early rising is necessary.) The moon was full and surrounded by dark, rainless clouds. And between these clouds and the light of the moon, rainbows twinkled through the darkness. I’d never seen anything like it, and I will never forget it. A show of God’s promises.

Yesterday evening on my way back to Grandpa’s from church, I was praying and crying. The Lord had reminded me of much that day, and I had a lot to think about. I wasn’t feeling on top of the world – more like buried under the ocean. I turned a corner and there it was: a rainbow. No rainclouds – just sun – and a rainbow. I followed it for fifteen or twenty more minutes, reminded that my God hears, and knows, and doesn’t let anything happen to me He will not see me through. And, yes, it may be hard. But as the pastor said that evening, “God isn’t out to make His children happy. He wants to make them holy.”

Be still, my soul: thy Jesus can repay from His own fullness all He takes away.

~ from the hymn “Be Still, my Soul” by Katharina A. von Schlegel