Ponderments

pink Columbine at The Brown Bungalow

The LORD is your keeper;

The LORD is your shade on your right hand.

The sun will not smite you by day,

Nor the moon by night.

The LORD will protect you from all evil;

He will keep your soul.

The LORD will guard your going out 

and your coming in

From this time forth and forever.

Psalm 121:5-8

Two weeks from today the moving company is scheduled to load our household goods. Beloved is flying back here today from driving one of our cars to The Land of Flip Flops and leaving it with family. My sewing machines are stored in that car, in addition to some other things we just preferred to move ourselves.

Almost exactly twenty-two years ago to the day, we were leaving the Rocky Mountains to make a new home in Florida. It was take either a job transfer, or accept a lay-off. At the time all three of our children were in college, so although the transfer forced us to leave the kids in Colorado, going where the paycheck demanded seemed our best option.  

With that said, we were excited to go. In anticipation I played the Beach Boys' "Kokomo" full blast on the stereo every day and danced around the house.

Moving to such a place in the heat and humidity of summer from a much cooler and drier environment proved to be very hard. The excitement of building a new house carried me through pretty well for about nine months but then the glam of living in the subtropics began to wear very thin.  Eventually I got real with my emotions and sort of fell apart. All the changes and having my children two time zones away did me in. I was not happy and those close to me knew that all too well. I was not the picture of patience and forbearance. 

But as Beloved likes to say, "Nothing is so bad that it can't at least serve as a bad example." 

By the mercies of the Lord, Beloved was able to work out a job transfer back to Colorado, and about fourteen months after we left our mountain home state, we were able to return. 

Much has happened since then. I'm twenty-two years older, I've had a lot of time to ponder that experience from every direction a mind can go, and this time we have two of our children in Florida, plus their spouses and all eleven of our grandchildren. 

I believe our God gives second chances to get things right. He's done it with me before. It's like repeating a grade in school. The instruction is so valuable that He arranges circumstances so we can try it again, hopefully with greater success this time. I am not proud of how I handled myself before and pray the lessons learned since then will result in true maturity this time.

The changes twenty-two years ago brought negative responses from me such as anger, disappointment, frustration, regret, and fear (or better put: crying, yelling, sulking, and sullenness). 

Most of my readers (because we are all humans) have been through similar feelings.  I am not proud of my behavior but I also know God had a purpose in it for me and it's all good.

Now as I anticipate the immediate future, my expectations are different. That is a big help in itself. We need to have realistic expectations.

I also understand there are some factors that are simply put, unchangeable. Trying to redesign or remove them is not the right solution, nor even possible in some cases. They are what they are and they won't change, no matter what. I accept that and am planning to do that cheerfully.

A quiet submission to what must be is a good course for me to take. Expectations need to be filtered through the understanding that God loves me and desires to make me more like Himself through what He allows to touch me. 

Just as we do for our small children what must be done for their own good, in spite of their temper tantrums, our Lord does the same with us.

So this time when 

I feel the perspiration dripping down the center of my back 

my hair sticks to my scalp

the heat wilts me

the air conditioning freezes me

and we celebrate Christmas in shorts and sandals

I plan to remember that it's all good. There are unseen positive things happening if I will submit to the One who is doing a good thing in me. I will give myself more time to adapt, slow down, and allow my body, mind, soul, spirit to transform to the new environment. 

These are my ponderments today. 

By the way, spell check does not like the word 'ponderments' and keeps changing it to 'wonderments.' Perhaps as time goes on I will see the changes as Wonderments!

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