One foot

I feel so homesick.  And I don't want to feel this.  I want to bloom where I am planted.  I want to be content.  And yet, I want to look at pictures from Carmel and just wallow a bit.  I am tired of Maui and the lack of connection I feel to the landscape.  I do appreciate it but I don't feel very connected as it.  The ocean does give me life and I am grateful for that...but I am homesick.

 

I am also homesick for my mom, it is amazing how I have gotten used to a new normal with mom. 

I think I am also kinda homesick for when my kids were little and knowing we will never go back.  I will never see Deveraux younger than she is right now.  Time marches.

This summer has been about staying put.  Being here.  Beach days and home days.  Beach days and home days.  Beach days and home days.  Days where the best I could do was begin again each day, keeping putting one foot in front of the other.  Or days where pursuing relationship shook me from the dust a bit and that was good.

We have big prayers lifted up right now.  Prayers about Drew's work, a possible fall trip with his parents, and when I can go see mom.  We are in the here, but not yet.

I facilitate between knowing my problems are so small compared to the rest of the world and they truly are first world problems, but they are mine and they can feel consuming at times.

I think overall I just feel a bit stuck. Wanting to be in my life content but not. 

One foot in front of the other is all we can do sometimes.

The kids found a really cool crab in a shell.

 

Exploring

I just read a devotional that seems very pertinent.  Funny how that happens.  It was on the topic of Adventure and how God is our guide.  Not always an easy path.  I like to think of adventures as fun and exciting and "away."  But I think God is calling me/us on a home adventure right now.  The author said she had to lay down important things to say yes to an adventure with God.  We have to lay down our lives.  But the promise is that He will be with us which means we will have life. 

So God is calling me to continue to unpack my bags and stay put until we feel called or an opportunity arises for us to pack.  God is calling me even in this time where I am not "comfortable" in Maui, crazy as that sounds, and engage in relationships and life here.  To not trust my feelings, because they "feel" homesick and instead rely that God has not left me on this island to feel isolated and stuck.  But instead trust there is meaning and work here for me to put my hand to and I can abandon myself to trust not in what I see but in the person of Jesus. 

He told me, "So funny she is a little human."

It's so funny how time and time again I can dance around God.  I can read about the idea of God.  Think thoughts about God.  But until I stop and engage with Him and connect to His truth then I am not stopped.  But every time I stop, He blesses and cleanses with His truth.  And I get out of myself.

My adventure right now is an adventure of trust.  We are not about a travel around the globe but the traveling through our hearts.  I want exotic land.  He wants my surrender.  I want landscape I love, he wants the landscape of my heart. 

Sometimes the great adventure is staying put!

(On this day, we had a great adventure in our own backyard.  I wanted

to see a new beach area so we went to a beach I had never visited only

about 15 minutes from our house.  The kids had been there so they

were my navigators.  We have definitely had many stops and starts dealing

with attitude in these days.  It is about hanging in there with one

another and allowing the "restarts" when they come.

Our "restart" today began with this beautiful white shell.

I found it and called Bobo over who was not thrilled to

be there, he allowed his mood to shift and we had such a

good time.  You never know what will help that "restart."

I realized how alive and lifted in spirit by going

somewhere new and exploring.)