Monday, July 19th was a changing day for us!! Rewind a week: Returning from our trip to Oregon, and Brian's second trip up to Spokane to pursue employment there since Sacramento was dry, we made some difficult decisions.
We are coming upon a new school year for our two boys, entering into 6th & 4th grade. We home schooled 3rd grade last year and had a rough 5th grade year also. There are many reasons for our dis-satisfaction with the school district, too many to grieve, but we knew that the upcoming school year, mid-August, here in Northern California, would require something NEW. Our current living situation, residing with Brian's mom, also needed to change.
With a potential of jobs Brian had groomed during his past two visits, a hope that was not realized by moving to California, and in trying to make the best choice for our children, we officially decided to make a move back to Spokane, WA.
Carefully living on the meager unemployment "benefits," and a couple part-time jobs, we managed to save enough money for whatever our future would hold. One of the things I learned during this desert season, was that choices and decisions cannot fully be made on facts. Granted, I learned this from what we did wrong, not what we did right, so my suspect of this new life lesson had yet to be challenged...so we began to plan our move...when, how, a place to live, etc...
We began to tell our friends and family about our plans to return to the place we left. We had no job, nothing certain, just a knowledge and passion for change. Hope, actually. Something we haven't had for quite sometime!
I'd love to say, our faith was at amazing, awe-inspiring levels, however, the truth is that we were BEAT DOWN! Gasping with our last breaths, grasping with fingers that were slipping from the deep cliff we felt and saw looming. In the beginning, I felt excitement for what God would do, how God could be glorified through our defeat. By the end, I truly was holding on for dear life. That's what ultimately I find hysterical! I am so prideful that I looked for God to use us, when it wasn't about me from the beginning, well, it was, just a more humbling, fall-on-my-face kinda way. So far, the biggest lesson I've learned from, finally having "success" is that all of this was for my own redemption, not for someone else's!
"(MY) Sin had left a crimson stain, HE washed it white as snow."(Jesus Paid It All, Kristin Stanfill-on my playlist)
The minute we stepped out, the semblance of optimism shown. Like in the retro-game, Sonic, when you'd have to make the poor guy jump out on faith, but then a block would appear, temporarily, but you had to keep moving. If you stood still too long, it would disappear and Sonic would plunge into a fiery pit, it was the same for us. We leaped, and reassurance became visible.
Why now? What did we do? I'm like the rat who just got the treat in the maze...somehow I got an atta-boy, but I'm not sure what I did?! Maybe it was that we'd really been through the worst of it, I'd been at the bottom, physically, spiritually, relationally. Part of me wonders if Satan just gave up on torturing us, or maybe it was just my limp body finally falling into the arms of My Savior?
I'm not stronger, I can't endure more than I ever thought, I'm not in the midst of a passionate and revived relationship with God, none of the cliche things that happen to people in the midst of crisis. I am humbly surprised and hugely releaved, knowing that it was GOD! AND, I'M SMILING and that's enough!
Friday, July 23, 2010
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Between a rock & a hard place...it's just HARD
Leaving Again! The worst thing about leaving is that when you need people, they need to NOT, NEED YOU. The pain of separation happens much before the actual separation because it is natural for people to withdraw, in order to avoid pain. Much like we learn quickly not to touch a hot stove, we also learn to avoid emotional pain.
We know a bit about mourning the loss of friendships because we experienced it about a year and a half ago, when we made the choice to leave Spokane, our home of about 20 years. I met a woman at BLITZ, who shared with me that re-locating can be worse than suffering loss through death, due to the amount of trauma one experiences when leaving everything they know and love. I suppose I should have been the one telling her, since that really had been my experience through the past year-and-a-half. I remember the first field trip I went on with Jonah's class, just after arriving in California. I must have look like a deer in the headlights. I had to find my way into downtown Sacramento, dependent upon trailing people who didn't realize how desperately I needed to follow their lead. It felt like survival, and it was!
We once again, find ourselves in a dead-end situation, knowing that a step of faith and a step towards choosing what's best for our family, is what is required. It is not fun to be stuck between a rock and a hard place! It is just HARD!
Being abandoned feels the same, whether someone means to or not. I understand and I'm sure I've done the same, unconsciously, or consciously, this is not passed as judgment, just perception and experience.
We know a bit about mourning the loss of friendships because we experienced it about a year and a half ago, when we made the choice to leave Spokane, our home of about 20 years. I met a woman at BLITZ, who shared with me that re-locating can be worse than suffering loss through death, due to the amount of trauma one experiences when leaving everything they know and love. I suppose I should have been the one telling her, since that really had been my experience through the past year-and-a-half. I remember the first field trip I went on with Jonah's class, just after arriving in California. I must have look like a deer in the headlights. I had to find my way into downtown Sacramento, dependent upon trailing people who didn't realize how desperately I needed to follow their lead. It felt like survival, and it was!
We once again, find ourselves in a dead-end situation, knowing that a step of faith and a step towards choosing what's best for our family, is what is required. It is not fun to be stuck between a rock and a hard place! It is just HARD!
Being abandoned feels the same, whether someone means to or not. I understand and I'm sure I've done the same, unconsciously, or consciously, this is not passed as judgment, just perception and experience.
Monday, July 5, 2010
I have been doing a lot of reading, while on our trip to Oregon to visit my parents and to send the boyz to Camp. When writing is a passion, many things trigger "a good" story, or a good write, but when reading my new favorite author, Jody Picoult's books, "Plain Truth," and "Vanishing Acts," I am especially engergized to write.
The bloody truth of it is that life has plenty of drama and mine is none-the-less draumatic, as this week proves. We drove up from our current temporary living situation in Northern California, partly to escape certain difficult realities and to send our boys to camp on the Oregon Coast. Brian needed to return to Spokane for continued interviews, leaving me with the kids, visiting at my Mom's house. A perfect plan, accomplishing several tasks and desires at the same time, however, as life does...it DOESN'T Comply! I plan to visit with my Dad and Step-Mom while I'm here, knowing she's been struggling with chronic pain and abnormal swelling, and various other symptoms that have left her chair-ridden and taken the normality of life, away.
It's not as if I wasn't informed, or worse, lied to, but somehow seeing is Truth. I could finish that sentence with so many words, but Truth is the best fitting because, I was taken-a-back by the Truth and reality of what ever this is that has ravished my Step-Mom's body. The optimism on the other side of the phone was not there to soften the blow of the reality. Inside I wept.
I've been there the last week of someones life and it sucks. I watched my Father-in-law pass from health, into the oblivion of succombing to cancer. It was tortutourous to watch moments of subtle lucidity, surrounded by mostly an unconsious state. I hadn't had much intimate experience with death, a few losses of people I knew from school, my grandparents had passed, but that was dealing with death, not the process to death.
The realization of illness, ironically, gives a new perspective to life. It makes all the small things that once seemed insignificant, soar to meaning of new heighs. Trinkets that were once given, now become cherished and are a part to a bigger story, a memory that you hold tight.
My Step-Mom and I have a complicated past, one that most families experience when there is a divorce and re-marriage. Even in the best of circumstances, this new person enters with a title, but no relationship and at best, a deshelveled family who may or may not be interested in building a life with this person. My story is one with a protaginist and antagonist, maybe one in the same.
To Be Continued...
The bloody truth of it is that life has plenty of drama and mine is none-the-less draumatic, as this week proves. We drove up from our current temporary living situation in Northern California, partly to escape certain difficult realities and to send our boys to camp on the Oregon Coast. Brian needed to return to Spokane for continued interviews, leaving me with the kids, visiting at my Mom's house. A perfect plan, accomplishing several tasks and desires at the same time, however, as life does...it DOESN'T Comply! I plan to visit with my Dad and Step-Mom while I'm here, knowing she's been struggling with chronic pain and abnormal swelling, and various other symptoms that have left her chair-ridden and taken the normality of life, away.
It's not as if I wasn't informed, or worse, lied to, but somehow seeing is Truth. I could finish that sentence with so many words, but Truth is the best fitting because, I was taken-a-back by the Truth and reality of what ever this is that has ravished my Step-Mom's body. The optimism on the other side of the phone was not there to soften the blow of the reality. Inside I wept.
I've been there the last week of someones life and it sucks. I watched my Father-in-law pass from health, into the oblivion of succombing to cancer. It was tortutourous to watch moments of subtle lucidity, surrounded by mostly an unconsious state. I hadn't had much intimate experience with death, a few losses of people I knew from school, my grandparents had passed, but that was dealing with death, not the process to death.
The realization of illness, ironically, gives a new perspective to life. It makes all the small things that once seemed insignificant, soar to meaning of new heighs. Trinkets that were once given, now become cherished and are a part to a bigger story, a memory that you hold tight.
My Step-Mom and I have a complicated past, one that most families experience when there is a divorce and re-marriage. Even in the best of circumstances, this new person enters with a title, but no relationship and at best, a deshelveled family who may or may not be interested in building a life with this person. My story is one with a protaginist and antagonist, maybe one in the same.
To Be Continued...
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