piecing bits together in the afterward

I think it takes me a long time to process life events.

It wasn't until around the time that Priscilla was born that I first really began to be sad that my parents got divorced, and that had happened when I was six. It was all those years before I began to wonder what life would have been like if they had found the Lord together, if He had restored them, if they had worked through their hardships and stayed married. Since then, I have had more children, and I have also wondered more what it would have been like to have a sibling as a child. I knew as a kid that I was missing out, but I don't know if I realized how much I was missing out on until watching my kids play together. Each of their days together is like the best day I ever had with my friends as a kid... because they have each other, they accept each other, they love each other, and they always have a buddy to play with. I am shocked sometimes to see how blessed they are.

I was snuggling Ezekiel before his nap the other day... which tends to be the one time of day when my mind really wanders, as I can't "do" anything in that time except snuggle him... and I began to miss my Grandpa Jack, my mom's dad. I think it has been a growing realization for a while but it didn't really come to light for me until just then. I miss him! It's been fourteen years since he died, and you know what, I miss him.

So when I say that I am processing through the events of the last several years, it's true. I might just be beginning to process. I'm not even up to Iowa yet. I'm still thinking of our moving-around time since leaving Utah. And realizing, not for the first time of course, but a little more deeply all the time, how hard it is to keep starting over.

This time feels like the worst, but several other times have felt like the worst too. Maybe it just keeps getting worse. By the time we accepted the call to Iowa, almost two years ago now, we were desperate to settle down, plant roots, stay forever. Now we are back to the drawing board, with Keith searching for direction as to what to pursue vocationally, with life feeling tumultuous again. Finding a new church again, dealing with that awkwardness of trying to find community again.

I am great with handling things in the moment, I think. Perhaps it is because I know to lean on the Lord when times are hardest, and He carries me wonderfully through it. But it's the afterward that's hard. The afterward that comes after you lose a child. The afterward that comes after you lose a job. The afterward that comes when you have no church family, no friends nearby, no real in-the-flesh community. This is our second time going through that entire scenario, and we've been through the jobs and moving thing plenty of other times! Oh Lord, will You be my Strength, my Shield, my All in All, my Community, my Friend that I long for? The peace and restfulness that I long for in my home, it needs to come from You. Please Lord, dwell in this place of longing, overflow here.