Tuesday, December 17, 2013

THE UNFAMILIAR WAITING

I've seriously thought about deleting my Facebook account instead of deleting people, and it's not for the reasons you would think.  I want to hit the delete button, at least for a little while, because it hurts too much to look.  It hurts this time of year when I want to be close to the people on that page that have moved on without me so close by.  It really disappoints me that I cannot be in my hometown in the church I love so very much and am missing all that is going on, all the exciting end of the year things that make Revolution the church that held my heart like Jesus in the manger.  And finally, it is hard to see the children that I have adored since birth growing up or all grown up without me.

I know...it's selfish...and I have to accept that life changes.  But must everything change? every relationship? every friendship? every place? every memory?

It's a snowy Tuesday here on the East Side of the state, the suburbs of Detroit where I live now.  I drove from the doctor's office this morning, wondering if this baby I am waiting to make an appearance will even know all the things that have made me who I am, will even recognize the friends that I thought would be aunts to him or her, will see my hometown as a home-away-from-home.  I wonder if my child will gravitate toward Detroit, the place I despised as a child, but now live shoulder to shoulder with.  This baby will have his or her own hometown to grow up in, and it won't be St. Louis and then Port Huron like Daddy or Grand Rapids like Mommy.  I wait to see what my child will embrace as home (beyond the physical location, but that feeling you get when the only home you know is all you want to know).

My mind during this time of year misses the familiar.  Christmas was a warm familiar place for me even some years ago when love surrounded me, where I was surrounded by family and friends.  I wish that I could combine my life now with my life then.  I wish I could show my husband the world that swirls in my memories but it feels so long gone now.  I gaze at the pictures and read the stories and live vicariously through all those I miss and then I want to hit the delete button and forget about them.  I want to not see how I don't fit there anymore.  But I can't hit the delete button for my mind's instant recall.  So I find myself waiting to be okay with not being as involved with the lives that were so fully intertwined with mine.

We started going to church in Troy.  We still attend like visitors and  lately, with all the sadness at not being at my old church, I haven't wanted to go.  This is horrible to admit - that I have had to convince myself that I will one day fight past the feeling that I only fit in in one place.  It's ridiculous and I know my husband thinks I am just being silly, but the right church for you is hard to replicate somewhere else and I've never been able to do it.  I have never been able to not miss the love I felt at my old church.  I cannot just switch that feeling over.  And I find myself waiting for the sadness to pass and acceptance to walk through the sanctuary doors with me.

This Advent season feels so much more like waiting - more than any other year.  I feel like I am waiting for  the next season to begin, an unfamiliar place that smells and tastes and feels like change - a change I am learning to be ready for.  In this season, I think a lot about the kind of wife I must be, the kind of mother I will be, the kind of daughter I have to be.  I know these places by mind but not by heart and I realize that some things within those places cannot be planned for because I have never been there before.

And in the middle of all this waiting that seems to be endless, I find myself waiting for the God of change to change me.  The Christ in Christmas has to be my focus so that when change comes I won't grieve yesterday and miss today.  Life has to be lived for today.  It has to be embraced right now.  And I am learning that, even in this place that is so unfamiliar.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"I AM right there with you in the Wait!!!" That's what dropped in my spirit when I finished reading this. It's so uncomfortable during this time of wait and changing, but its the best time of growth for us. Thank you Sis for sharing what is on not just your heart, but on the hearts of many! I know how you feel in my own way!

I love you!

Your Sister Shyra