Sometimes the days get dark.
The January cold seems to blow right through you.
Days where you’re not sure you want to get out of bed, and God seems like a dream you had you can’t quite remember.
Transitions can be hard.
I don’t think I expected that. Expected to find myself in a new place, not knowing anyone, living out of someone’s guest room and on other’s kindnesses, just craving a space of my own.
A nook. A place I could crawl into to feel sane. Or like my old self again. A routine I could sink my teeth into.
Sometimes we feel like fish out of water and we feel like we’re going crazy, but people tell us its normal and it’s all going to be ok.
And then four days into the biggest move you can remember making, you get pneumonia and the doctor tells you in a reassuring voice that it’s going to take a while for your body to feel normal.
He says annoying things like “rest,” when you’re not quite sure how to do that with your suitcases strewn all over the floor and an apartment hunting list a mile long. Where should I rest? How?
Where is my African sun?
Where is the me that gets up and knows what needs to get done that day.
I know it’s called culture shock, but putting a label on it doesn’t seem to make me feel less like a crazy person.
I keep looking for things I can’t find…. “now where did I put that one sweater I own….”
I had a pair of fuzzy boots didn’t I?
Instead I just layer on mismatched clothes like a bag lady.
I feel like body parts keep giving up on me. I surrender. You’ve put me through enough! My eye. It’s red and oozing. I can’t figure out why. I’m like a creepy, angry cyclops.
I tell my husband he should just leave me for dead somewhere before I have a leg fall off.
I know, dramatic. But it feels dramatic.
Nothing feels right.
I tell myself it’s temporary. But we can’t wait for things to change.
We have to make a heaven out of hell now.
I bundle myself up into as many layers as I can find (again, think bag lady) and go outside to lie down in the sun.
I take deep breaths. I start to breathe again.
I remember what it is to breathe, as though the last few weeks I’ve been catching my breath, waiting for the impact.
I feel the warmth on my face start to seep into me.
I look up and watch the clouds shifting through the trees.
And I feel Him again. I start to feel my Father. In a patch of sunlight.
There you are. I’ve missed you.
He’s there waiting. For us to drink deeply of his love. To lie under the shade of Him. To find a way to connect, however that might look.
He’s so faithful. So faithful when we are so faithless, that it makes me want to cry.
He wants us. Even with how messed up we feel. Even with our ugly eye.
But there He is, telling me He’s going to take care of me again.
I picture a writing nook in the sun.
And I trust it. I believe it.
It’s going to be alright.
I just have to keep the faith.
As the sun dips back into the clouds, I go inside still clinging to this holy moment.
Still clinging to this tenderness.
