Cloudy Days

"I lift my eyes up to the hills.
Where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord, Maker of Heaven and Earth."
Ps. 121

It's funny how it always seems to go -- that the most wonderful days of my life are also some of the most stressful.  My wedding day, for instance.  Or how the birth of my son, my father (who had come to help out) having a heart attack, and Matt deploying happened within a really crazy two weeks.  Or the past year-and-a-half of living here.

Don't get me wrong: I can't emphasize enough how much I've enjoyed these past nineteen months.  Or how I've never felt so instantly "at home" in a place as I did here.  But it's also been challenging.  Things have happened -- things that aren't really mine to talk about at length -- that placed stress on our family and stretched us in ways we wouldn't have chosen.  And I would be flat-out lying if I didn't tell you that stress level is climbing as we anticipate the changes coming in the very near future.  The kids keep asking me what "the chances are" of this slim possibility or that.  Daily, someone (not just me and Matt) says, "We can't plan that!  We don't even know where we're going!"

Some people think kids don't feel the stress like we do, but I don't believe that.  Jayna told me the other night she had a dream about being in an airport and knowing that she was supposed to be getting on a plane, but she didn't know which one to get on.  She kept running from gate to gate trying to figure out, and she woke up in a cold sweat.

I listened, nodded sympathetically, and thought, Am I saving enough for therapy?  'Cause sometimes I think this is enough to drive all of us nuts.

As I said a few weeks ago, I only really care about my family being happy, healthy, and whole.  But I'm one of those people who likes to read the last pages of a book when the plot gets thick, just to know that it turns out okay -- or prepare myself emotionally if it's a tear-jerker.  And right now there is no way for me to peek at the ending.

I just have to be still.  Trust.  Not what I would call my personal strengths.

But there's this mountain here, Mt. Baker.  The first day we arrived, it was rainy and cold and everything you'd expect the Pacific Northwest to be.  We couldn't see more than a few miles in any direction.  And then a couple days later, the sun came out... and there was Mt. Baker!  And so much more!  Everywhere I looked there were views and scenery so absolutely stunning they almost couldn't be believed.  My arm got bruised from all the pinching myself.

We've had a lot of rain this winter.  (Of course.)  A whole lot of cloudy days.  But yesterday the sun came out for the day, and once again, I found myself looking around thinking, Really?!  I mean, REALLY?!?!  It was almost too beautiful.

And today, it's cloudy again.  Which more or less sums up our time here -- and life in general, I guess.  We turn one corner or scale one impossible wall only to find another, bigger one ahead.  I find my heart pounding a little; it's hard not to be dismayed.  I can't see the beauty any more, just the clouds.

But then I remind myself that the mountain is still there, that beyond the clouds blocking my vision, the picture is still breathtaking.

Even if I only get glimpses of it.

I lift my eyes up to the hills -- where does my help come from?

My help comes from the Lord, Maker of Heaven and Earth

He will not let your foot slip -- He who watches over you will not slumber;

Indeed, He who watches over Israel with neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord watches over you -- the Lord is your shade at your right hand;

The sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all harm -- He will watch over your life;

The Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.

Psalm 121