Holy Week (and before)

 

I have to admit–Lauren’s last days and her death put me in a dark sort of place a while.

It’s hard to describe how much I miss her.  I mostly miss her because she could always hold out hope.  No matter how grouchy and anxious I felt, she could always dangle hope out there.  I miss how she was so proud of who I was becoming in my formation.  Sometimes I feel sorrow that my process has gone on so long people are literally dying off before we even know 100% if it’s going to happen.

I thought seriously about simply throwing in the towel last week.  The fatigue of all this, coupled with a lot of loss, is getting to me. When I get in a dark place, sometimes I wonder if, as much as I love parts of my life the way they are, if I’m not doomed to be like George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life and I’ll live out my days much the way I’m living them now, always aching to be in a different place, a different situation, and making do with my life how it is.

Yet, I’m not really generally unhappy about that.  Mostly, I am happy with my life.  Very happy, actually.  I can just get periodically unhappy sometimes.  I’m sure some of this is a reaction to recent news that I won’t be doing my field work somewhere else.  I’m sure some of this is also a reaction to just a twinge of jealousy about the transitions of some other people in my life.  I’m sure some of this is just dog-weariness that all this juggling in my life is a solo project.  I rarely get lonesome in the “I sure wish I had a partner” dept., but when I’m juggling a lot, I admit it would be nice to have someone closer who could snuggle up with me and remind me I’m ok (and offer to help now and then with the overload, *chuckle*)  And those periodic, episodic bouts of unhappiness can be really deep.

Yet, at the same time I know we are an Easter people, and I know I only have seven more CPE commutes.  I love CPE–but the commute and the constant shuffling and the expense of it all are getting to me.  I don’t spend nearly as much time with my seminary coursework as I’d like.  I am not doing work in it to my own satisfaction, although I’m clearly passing.

I am reminded that resurrection is about waiting.  Waiting when you don’t know all the plot spoilers.  Waiting when you think it can’t get any darker, and it does get darker.  Waiting when you catch a glimpse of light and it’s only temporary and you recognize it’s not the light you’re waiting for, merely a light that tides you over till it gets here.

Waiting is long.  Waiting is lonely.  Waiting is confusing.  Waiting, for me, gnaws at me to “do something.”  Yet I recognize that “doing something” is not the thing to do this time.  The thing to do is to wait.  Rest.  Find “me time” even when I don’t really have it.

For me this week, me time has been about coloring in adult coloring books (it’s not what you think, LOL)–mostly Celtic knots and intricate designs of animals and trees and flowers.  I am clearly craving life and spring, and can find prayer time in the coloring of the Celtic knots.  I take comfort that I’ll be coloring something that goes all round about and eventually returns back to where I started.  This is what I crave–recognizing “this is where I started, and look at the journey I’ve been on!”