Wind, Waiting Rooms, and Wondering

The sun was shining, the wind was calm, and Nick was home early. "Let's go to the park," I suggested, grabbing my camera and thinking about how nice it would be to have some family play time. Funny. I have not yet made my peace with the concept of prairie wind. It is a bone numbing wind that can come from no where and make you wonder why your winter coat seems so insufficient. Needless to say, our park adventure lasted barely even a couple minutes, though it still provided a couple fun pictures including my goofy attempt at keeping Noah's face warm. (Don't worry, we pulled it down over his eyes and nose only seconds after I took this picture.)

Actually, when we are inside, I love the wind. With nothing but sky rising above rooftops, the sound of the wind is mysterious and even a bit enchanting. It begs you to turn on the fireplace and make hot chocolate, or to lay cuddled under the covers and just listen.

UW Arboretum

Waiting rooms are another story, quite less enchanting. My normally healthy family seems to have responded to this move with a great deal of sickness. It started with Noah's ear infections and our rush to Urgent care and continued with a very early morning rush to the ER for Nick who was experiencing severe abdominal pain. Fortunately, Nick's doctor thinks he just got a virus that has been going around which starts as a cold and ends with stomach flu like symptoms. After a week of extremely bland food, even a day of nothing but liquids, he is back to normal. As soon as that ended, I had some concern about the pregnancy, and what was supposed to be 1 day at the OB turned into 3 days with the OB. Again, we are celebrating that the baby is very healthy, and my symptoms were not early indicators of miscarriage. Now on the agenda is another visit for Noah, to check out some skin issues that won't seem to go away, and flu shots for the two of us. Maybe by the middle of next week, we won't be seeing as many waiting rooms.

I should add for the family members reading this, that we have been extremely fortunate to find very good health care, doctors we like, and efficiently run facilities. The University of Wisconsin Health System has been wonderful so far.

I wonder so much about what God is up to in our lives. The last couple weeks, I have been challenged by conversations with friends back home and by the Lord to reexamine my expectations for getting into life here. I realized that every time I met people I was expecting to find my new best friend and have my needs fulfilled. But, as my friend reminded me, God will bring me the relationships HE wants me to have to fulfill HIS purpose. Darn it! If I'm being truly honest with myself, and with Christ, than that isn't really the best news. I'm lonely a lot of the time for friendship, and I don't want it to take a long time to find friends here. I want God to meet my perceived needs in my timing, in which case He's already late. But... then I come back to what I know about Jesus, about faith, about suffering, and I have to conclude that He is not late and that I am not alone. Moments like this, when I'm trying to sort through a cascade of conflicting emotions and convictions, I wish that God would sit me down and show me his 5 year plan for my life and the communities that I am a part of. But then I would not need faith. I would not experience the joy of seeing how the Lord provides, and oh so many more problems with that scenario.

What I do believe is that God prepares us for the things that happen in our life. And I can see so many ways that our two years in Roanoke may have prepared us for ministry and life in Madison. I can even imagine that the richness of relationship there may have prepared me for a period of waiting here. Ultimately, my prayer is that the part of me that wants the five year plan won't keep me from seeing the work God wants me to be a part of now.


My thoughts for now....Thanks for reading

Oh! And don't forget to check out pictures on flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/heidigraham