Well, it's been a bit since I've written. There's a combination of reasons. I haven't felt like it much, alternating between being busy and being depressed. Yes, depressed. Oh I know, God is with me and all, I get that. I know He is. I also know that currently I feel at loose ends. After Himself passed on in 2015, I spent nearly a year trying to gather my wits, help my children recover, generally try to do everything for everyone else and ignore my own needs. That certainly kept me busy. Then when I felt like they were all managed, I started school and that kept me busy for another couple of years. Capt came along, more busy, more someone else to fill my time and energy.
Now? The kids are not kids. They're all grown men living elsewhere doing their own grown-man things. I am at loose ends. Time is being (sort of) filled by (sort of) taking care of whomever I can help (sort of) but it all feels like I'm doing things that can be done by anyone else with half a brain. Loose ends is putting it mildly. More like...purposeless. Anything I am doing is either for my own household of me-and-a-dog, or doing something that really is a thing that people are handing to me in order to keep me busy. Housesitting for someone (actually kind of fun, but c'mon. Anyone could do it), "babysitting" a 12 year old who annoys his father. That starts tomorrow and I'm going to put him to work doing things I could more easily do with the tractor, but he needs to do some work.
Historically, when I have found myself in such a place, I've charged ahead and tried to solve the issue myself. In retrospect, that hasn't always worked out well. So now, I am trying to do that thing we are admonished to do in the Bible...be quiet and wait on the Lord. But how do I know if I am waiting, or ignoring an open door?
So I pray. A lot. I read. A lot. I do the small things that need doing...pull a weed, trim a bush, point to the manure pile and wheelbarrow and instruct a 12 yr old on the finer points of composting. (He's going to love that. I just know it.) And I wait.
How do I wait? How do I keep from getting impatient and charging full steam ahead into disaster? One day at a time. Today, I can wait. I do all things through Christ, who gives me strength. Including wait.
I know how to live humbly, and I know how to abound. I am accustomed to any and every situation—to being filled and being hungry, to having plenty and having need. I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. Philippians 4:12-13
I am working on the humbly part. Humility is not my default position. But through Christ, who has walked beside when I was a wife and mother, held my hand when I was filled with fear, thrown me a lifeline when I was in the bottom of a pit, I know I am not alone in this new chapter of my life. He doesn't ask me to have everything planned out for the next 40 years, He only asks me to trust Him. There are SO MANY bits in the Bible about trusting Him. Over and over and over. It's easier than you think, and we make it harder than it should be.
But, for today, I can trust Him. I don't have to worry about tomorrow or next week. Today, I know I can trust Him, to open doors that need opening, closing the ones that He wants closed. He has closed many doors for me, and in the past I would refuse to accept that and force some open. That never turns out well. So for now, I am working on accepting the closed ones and waiting on some to open somewhere down the line.
That doesn't mean it's easy to accept. I don't make things easy. Never have. I want what I want and sometimes, often, what I want isn't the same thing as what God wants. My job, as I have learned from trying to be the captain of the boat, is to allow GOD to captain the boat, and wait on His commands. It's not easy. But, I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. For today.
