Drip, Drip, Drip, Drip

It seems lately that my life resembles a slow drip. Something unsettling, distracting and annoying all at once. It's like the one in my mom's kitchen sink that plinks onto the stainless steel bottom if not left to drip silently down the edge. We are living at their house at the moment. The odd part is that no one seems to be able to hear it but me. It brings me to the edge of reason and I HAVE to get up and fix it. Because no one else seems perturbed by this, they keep leaving it willy nilly wherever it is when they finish using it. Anyone remember the movie Gaslight? I'm beginning to wonder.... Anyhow, back to my life. After we sold our house everything that had been going a million miles an hour came to a screeching halt. We went up to our cottage in Maine for 2 weeks to rest and get our bearings and now, well now we're trying to find things to fill our time. Dave is working on a career change, I am homeschooling and taxi driving for extracurricular activities and wondering about the future. The sound of the slow drip I associate with the passage of time without a permanent home of our own with no end in sight. I believe this will be the time when our faith will be tested the most. Because I had time on my hands, a new concept, I recently read the book "The Blessings of Brokenness" by Charles Stanley. Tiny book, enormous impact. I could only take a chapter a day. I recommend it if you'd like to feel like you're having major reconstructive surgery while you're wide awake. Perhaps the dripping sound is my I.V.? God seems to be cutting and ripping things out of me. I am feeling both empty and ready to burst for different reasons. Now, I realize I asked Him to do this, but now that I'm on the table I'm having doubts. I can only trust that once the diseased stuff is out, I can be re-built. He has the technology.

The emptiness I diagnosed as relocation depression. This is a real condition experienced by people who have to move away from places they are happy and connected to. Generally this happens when you move away from a place you've lived your whole life. Of course I have to be opposite like George Costanza and experience this after leaving a place I only spent 2 years and returning to the place I grew up. I know, I'm weird. But it's really about the experiences and connections you make. These keep replaying in my mind like that background drip. I am fully aware, having experience with people who have had depression that it is a self-indulgent thing for the most part. I am not talking about clinical but experiential depression. The more I listen to the drip the more depressed I become. Pity party ensues. It is a vicious cycle. I have to choose to ignore that drip, to turn it away until it is silent.

Please don't think this is all there is. We are living and having fun amidst these things. We've been doing New England things like apple picking and country fairs and camping and horse shows and ice skating lessons. Watching the panoramas change from green to all the lovely shades of autumn with every passing day. Gold, yellow, crimson, fiery orange and burnt siennas dancing together in autumns symphony. We have cleaned my parents basement, sorted through all our possessions and learned to let go of many things. This is a complex time but there are always lovely things to be thankful for. My parents have been wonderfully supportive and kind, my friends patient. We are enjoying hearing our pastors speak to us on Sundays about God's great, unfathomable and unchanging love for us. Whatever the enemy has thrown our way to lure us away from or make us angry with God has only served to make us draw closer to God. This is of the highest value of anything we have done, painful as it may be. So we have much to be thankful for. That is the sound of the waterfall of the river of life. That is the sound I want to focus on. The drip brings tension and annoyance, the river brings peace and calm. Thank you, Lord, that you love me enough to not leave me the way you find me each morning.