A Place to Trust

Needless to say, blogging has fallen by the wayside these last couple weeks.  It’s been a bit busy over here—family visiting one week, church VBS the next.  There have been lots of happy moments …

watching Elanor get a bottle from her Grandma or Grandpa, her blue eyes studying their faces and her kissable lips breaking into a smile …

hearing David’s report of a special outing with Grandma and Grandpa, going one morning to an orchard and the next to a children’s museum …

dinner together around our little table …

zinnias blooming in the back yard …

celebrating our 4^th wedding anniversary and getting dessert out, just the two of us (chocolate strawberry wine and chocolate mousse pie) …

conversation in the church nursery as women snuggle little babies …

meeting some amazing women whose mothering experience and patience amazes me …

watching David’s face light up as I pick him up from VBS and see his craft and hear his story (the first thing mentioned, though, is the amazing snack he ate!) …

listening to David sing a Christian song I never taught him, knowing he must have learned it at VBS …

discovering Belk during an evening when Ben watched the kids, and buying pretty shirts …

looking at the clock and realizing Elanor just slept seven hours straight and I feel human again …

sitting at church feeling like a dry bottle, uncorking and feeling the Word pour in …

Yes, there have been lots of happy moments that remind me how blessed I am.  And then there have been those moments …

when David finally falls asleep for his nap just as Elanor wakes up and stays up, and I stagger around with her swaddled trying to think of what could put her to sleep so that I can collapse into a nap myself …

when I glimpse momentarily my lengthening to-do list amidst a whirl of exhaustion, David on one side asking a thousand why’s and Elanor on the other side fussing …

when I realize it’s almost August and I need to prepare for the class I’m teaching in a few weeks, despite the fact that piecing two thoughts together is challenging for me right now …

when in the midst of toddler tantrums and infant wails, Ben and I are sharp with each other …

when ants appear on sticky kitchen counters that should have been cleaned hours ago …

when the hamper is full of dirty laundry, the trash can in Elanor’s room is smelling up the entire upstairs, dishes fill both sinks, toys litter the family room floor, crayons are rolling off a dining room table where there’s no space left to eat, and there’s spoiled food in the fridge …

Yes, you get the idea, those moments, when despite the fact that I love being a wife and mother and am so grateful for this season of life, I despair a little.  “And I say, ‘Oh, that I had wings like a dove!  I would fly away and be at rest; yes, I would wander far away; I would lodge in the wilderness.’”

We talked about this psalm, Psalm 55, together at church this morning, of David’s longing to run from his situation, and I felt my heart in my throat—yes, there have been moments when I have wanted to fly away and be at rest.  Every year until now, Ben and I have escaped to Harrisonburg for a couple days.  We stay in a beautiful cottage there, we visit the JMU arboretum and sit and read and look at flowers and walk, we sleep in until the late morning sun shines through the window blinds and we listen to Amish buggies roll by … and this summer I have wanted to go back there again knowing it won’t happen this year …

We talked in church this morning of David’s desire to flee from his difficult circumstances, yet God meets him instead in his difficult circumstances.  This is where he comes to know God, as he purposes to “call to God … evening and morning and at noon … and He hears my voice ….  Cast your burden on the Lord, and He will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved….  But I will trust in you.”

So this is my place of trust.  This place of blessing and difficulty, of Elanor waking up early from her nap, David prancing down the hallway making noise, legos littering the floor, and what is the dinner plan for tonight?  I love this place and I experience joy here as I cast my burden on the Lord.  He does sustain me as I trust in Him.