{ I've been quiet... }

...because I'm not sure what to say. Honestly, the last few weeks have been difficult for me. I'm still processing, still soul-seasick from rough waters. I don't have many words right now. One of the hardest things for me about blogging is that, on the one hand, I want my small patch of internet to be bright, happy, joyful, creative, and enjoyable; a reflection of God's tremendous grace to me. On the other hand, I also want to be honest, vulnerable, "real;" I don't want to hide the bad or ugly parts of life. I don't want to project an artificial reality of glib cheeryness. God's grace isn't always sunshine...sometimes His grace comes in the form of bad weather, too. But clearly the internet isn't the best place to throw back the figurative curtains and give the world a webcam into the nitty-gritty of one's life. {It appears I have a perpetual online identity crisis, does it not?}

Thus, I quietly stow away, enjoying others' blogs, unsure of what to say on mine.

I've always wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. A few weeks ago it really started to get to me: I have no hope that I'll ever be able to stop working full-time. {Note: I didn't say the situation has become hopeless. Our outlook hasn't changed suddenly; it's just that I have no hope. Big difference.} I've been married a year and a half. Before we our wedding, we half-seriously joked that I should quit my job when we got back from our honeymoon. The reality is that we need both our incomes right now. I don't know when we'll be at a point where I don't need to work. And in the last few weeks, I slammed face-first into a very unpleasant reality: I don't think that day will ever come. I've lost hope. I've given up. I didn't choose to, it's just...gone.

I know in my head that God is sovereign, that He holds tomorrow in His hand, that I don't even know if I'll draw another breath....but knowing this in my heart is an entirely different matter. I want to be done with my career--scratch that, I want to be done awhile ago!

As a result, I've spent a lot of time lately being frustrated, angry, and overwhelmed.

What am I doing wrong?

Why is my life arranged in this way?

Has God forgotten?

Earlier this week I was making conversation with a patient and asked if she has family nearby.

"No, my son is in Connecticut."

"Then how did you end up in Washington?"

"Well, it's a long story..."

She was an Australian war bride during World War II. She met an American serviceman, they married, and he took her back to his family in Connecticut. They were married for 55 years before he died. Some time after his death, she submitted a pen-pal request to the veterans' newsletter for the unit/brigade {I don't remember the term} her husband was part of, asking to correspond with other war brides or people who had served with her late husband. A man in Washington responded, and after they'd written each other for seven months, he flew back to visit her. A month later, he returned with an engagement ring, and she moved across the country with her new husband.

Something in my heart moved a little bit as she spoke. I glimpsed a life that had taken turns she never dreamt of; both good and bad that she never could've imagined had come her way. The whole world explodes into warfare in WWII--and out of that, she meets her husband. She moves thousands of miles away from her family and friends, to another continent--and spends the rest of her life there, gaining new family and friends. Her husband dies after they've had a lifetime together--and from her connections with his veterans' newsletter, she meets another man who loves her and asks her to be his wife.

Trust Me. It's a still, small voice. I've been too furious even to want to listen for it. I still feel the weight of dread, fear, and anger that what I want so much has not been given me. But I also feel this: Trust Me. In an elderly lady's brief recollection of the twists and turns in her own life, I catch the briefest glimpse of a God whose plans are bigger than the horizon I see. For an instant, I can imagine a scenario in which there is hope.

What? Hope? How can I find hope when I'm at work--I thought I felt hopeless because I still have to work!

Your ways are not my ways, Lord. But I want trust You even when I can't see where You're leading me.

If the Lord had not been my help,

my soul would soon have lived in the land of silence.

When I thought, "My foot slips,"

your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up.

When the cares of my heart are many,

your consolations cheer my soul.

~ Psalm 94:17-19, ESV