Psalm 43:5-8
Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God.
My soul is cast down within me;
therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep
at the roar of your waterfalls;
all your breakers and your waves
have gone over me.
By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
and at night his song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life.
So, my traveler friend says as he gazes thoughtfully into the distance, "There is nothing quite like the lights of Singapore on a beautiful spring evening, the lights of Istanbul are probably the most exotic, and the romantic lights of Paris will take your breathe away, but there is nothing as beautiful as the tail lights of my children's minivan as the leave the driveway after a long weekend with the grandkids."
The deep gray black of the sky is split by the light pink, then increasingly intense colors ridged by the the bright orange pushing down on the dark silhouette of the Smokey Mountains. My grand daughter, Shirley Temple, as her mother calls her, this morning asked if sunset was coming up yet as we took them to the airport long before dawn. As I watch the beauty of another dawn I wrestle with the conflicting emotions welling up deep inside me.
My son and daughter in law with their four kids, ages 7 and down, flew out this morning after spending a "4 week" Christmas hiatus from their water project in the Ulpan valley of Guatemala with us. For two "empty nesters" accustomed to our routine and appreciative of our peace and quiet, you can imagine the whiplash of 24/7 rug-rats, toys underfoot, a perpetually full dishwasher, a constant stream of meals and snacks, trips to the playground, visiting the horses, nerf gun fights, star wars movies, and a dryer that never stops running. Sandwich in a mission trip to Honduras for me and preparing for the sale of Jan's parents home of 50 years into the mix and, well...
I shared my traveler friend's story with several grandparent friends and we have all laughed, I have expected to feel something of that elation myself when those tail lights lit up, especially after the addition of a fifth week due to Shirley Temple's onset of pneumonia and subsequent "forbidden to travel" order from her pediatrician on their scheduled eve of departure. Each of the other three proceeded to get sick in the ensuing week and I, with great empathy proceeded to join them with a GI flu bug, yes, both ends participating at once, thank you.
But, as I watched them wend their way through security this morning on their way to the gate, I feel more cast down in my soul than elated. It has been a wonderful, hard, way too busy and out of control few weeks full of airports, cluttered old home places, sometimes whiney kids, warm snuggles, broken Spanish (and English for that matter), tears, intense conversations, sweet little voices that say "Papa" and make your heart melt. Revisiting Guatemala has been been good and hard, exhilarating and confusing at times. We have processed and prayed, run and rested, wondered and sometimes wept, and now once again we send them off, four little munchkins, my son and a daughter, thankfully in the arms of the One who is steadfast love and faithfulness.
Am I really down cast, or is it just fatigue? I don't know and it really doesn't matter...I am thankful that even as I write and contemplate the Psalm above, given to me as I watched the sun rise this morning...I can't say that I hear the roar of the waterfall yet or feel the crashing of the breakers...but, somewhere deep inside me there is a wave rising and the smattering of hope that I, and my family will know how much we are loved by the One who is steadfast love and faithfulness.
We serve a wild and amazing God, what a trip!!
Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy!
