I stopped writing, as you can see.
It seemed another task to tackle, and well, I wasn’t up for it.
I have been debating how best to describe our furlough. How do you wrap up three brimming months? How do I explain how thankful I am for the time, how exhausted we are, how ready we are to go home, how sad we are to leave?
Thus, I concluded that our furlough was like three months in a wave pool.
Wave pools are pretty great. You are jumping and swimming; you are among friends and surfing waves.
We caught a lot of good waves while we were here: we had meals with family; we saw friends; we had rich conversations. We met new babies! We took road trips; we went shopping. We ate delicious food! We went on dates and shivered in the cold and understood English. We sang loudly in church. It was one good wave after another.
But there is another side of a wave pool. There is always something that causes one wave to go above your head, and if you can’t get back you’re footing pretty quickly, your just overtaken. There is water everywhere, you’re banging into people and gasping for breath. Water is in your ears and nose and eyes; your holding onto your swimsuit for dear life.
Maybe most of you are wondering what I’m talking about and how I could ever come that close to drowning in a wave pool. I’m not incredibly coordinated, so just bear with me.
Once you’re under, it just keeps pummeling you. The waves just keep coming, and you just want the eight minutes to be up so you come up for air and get yourself sorted.
A few waves went over my head in March, quite a few more in April, and by May, I was just scrambling to find which way was up. The waves were coming quick: good waves, bad waves. It was just getting ugly quick.
And that’s why I’m ready to go home. I want out just so I can sort out what was fun and what just felt like drowning; and why are those so easily confused? I want out so I can catch my breath.
The past three months were so full of joy, laughter, & hope; but they were also covered in tears, pain, confusion, questions, and fears. I’m sitting at the airport now and still gasping for air.
Each night we were able to have dinner with my sister & her family, the kids would sing their prayer song, with the rest of us harmonizing:
God our Father, God our Father
Once again, once again
May we ask your blessing, may we ask your blessing
Amen. Amen.
And now it’s just mulling around in my head: can we ask You to just bless these next weeks and months as we get ourselves re-oriented? Can we find rest and space to process all the waves that just knocked us off our feet? May we ask your blessing–again?