 |
| Are you tired of pics of my cats? Because I have an endless supply. This is Tash being cute, as usual. |
 | ||
| I love this!! I don't know if you can see him behind the flowers, but this is our pal, Jack, giving Han flowers after the musical. If you've been with us awhile, you'll remember that Jack was 3-months-old when we lived in the same quad as his parents at our training in Richmond. Now, Hannah is his babysitter. Love it!! |
I generally avoid things at which I'm terrible. For example, I don't bowl. Why? I'm atrocious at bowling. TERRIBLE. So I just don't bowl. There are other things I don't do, too...ballroom dancing, for example. Or exercising in front of people with any kind of exercise that requires me to do more than put one foot in front of the other. (Get the idea? I'm not very coordinated.) I also avoid doing math without a calculator. Not good at it, so I don't do it.
But there are some things I'm not good at that I can't avoid. Waiting is one of those things. It seems like the last two years have been all about waiting. We had to wait to know where we were going. Then we had to wait to be approved by the trustees and doctors. Then we had to wait to get here. Then we had to wait to settle in and get through transition. In other words--just like every other person on earth--waiting is a big part of my life. And I'm truly terrible at it.
There are some things I'm waiting on right now that are uncomfortable to me. I am waiting to really learn German. Now, that's not a docile, passive waiting--I practice, I study, I talk to people every day. But in preparation for an exam we have coming up, I decided to take an online German placement exam. I got 8/30 right, and was placed as a beginner. I cried. I'm not kidding. I had a meltdown. I'll never learn German. I'll never speak it. I'm probably not going to pass the exam. It was a pretty big pity party, I'm not going to lie. But you know what? I am a beginner. Just because I can put a sentence together correctly doesn't mean I'm not a beginner. (I can hold a pretty good conversation with anyone under 4, as long as it's mostly about food.) I must give myself time to really learn. I'm not 20, and this is my third language. It'll come. It'll happen. But I have to wait patiently.
We are waiting to really figure out our place here in Vienna and on our team. There has been lots of transition for our team, and it continues. I want it done now. Maybe yesterday. I want to know what ministry is going to look like. In fact, if you could work out our ten-year-plan and just give me the outline so I can write it in my calendar (one of THREE I keep on my desk), then that would be super. But that's not how it works, is it? Nope. Transition will happen, we will settle in, we will find our place in this city and on our team...but these things take time. I have to wait.
The granddaddy of "waiting" situations in our lives has been the last six weeks with my Dad's health. I have not talked publicly much about this (until it was resolved), and I haven't even really talked much privately about this. In fact, very few people have known how sick my Daddy is and has been. We have been waiting for a diagnosis for weeks of what is causing him to be so ill. And it's been torture. Not just hard. Torture. My sisters are in Dallas and Indianapolis. I'm in AUSTRIA, for heaven's sake. So in my heart, I've pictured my sweet parents, all alone in Florida, with my Dad getting sicker and sicker and sicker...let's just say my normal trouble with sleeping has been magnified a bit in the last six weeks. And the symptoms--and even comments from the doctor--led us to expect the worst. (I think even the doctor thought it was cancer.) I had a complete meltdown one night at about 1am, and had to go downstairs and plan my trip back to Middleburg. I simply could not, under any circumstances, sit in Vienna, Austria, while my Daddy was sick in Florida. I couldn't. Impossible. Yet, that's exactly what I did, and what my sisters did, as we waited.
If you're on facebook with me, you know that we got the diagnosis yesterday--something with a big long name that is basically a mass that is wrapped around Daddy's left kidney. And while he still feels terrible and is really sick, it's something that can be fixed. It's not cancer. It's not get-yourself-home-to-Middleburg-asap time. There are surgeries at hand, things to be done...but there is a positive outcome at the end of this tunnel unless something really unexpected happens. And we're so thankful, and so grateful. Many, many tears of joy have been shed in the last 24 hours, and I'm sure those weren't just here in Vienna.
I'm not just thankful, though, for a more positive outcome than any of us expected. I'm thankful, as weird as it sounds, for the waiting in my life right now. Not just in this situation, but in a lot of situations. Waiting gives me the chance to reflect on God's faithfulness, in the dark times and in the happy times. When this all started, and we realized something was really wrong with my Dad, I made a covenant with God in my prayer journal, one I asked Him to hold me accountable to--that I would praise Him no matter what the outcome. Good news, bad news, in between news...it's all about Him. And I don't think it's coincidence that this week, which has been by far the hardest as we knew a diagnosis was coming, was a traveling week for Marc, one in which I've had very little contact with him. No relying on Marc to bolster me. No relying on friends to carry me through. Nope. Me and God. And it hasn't been a terrible week. I've stuck pretty close to home as we waited for the diagnosis (and as my Dad felt worse and worse), but it's been a pretty good week, if a quiet one. I've gotten some things done. I've studied German. I've done some cleaning. And I've spent some significant time relying on the One who loves me--and you--and my Daddy best.
Time to get the day started. Well, of course, my day actually started around 4, when Tasha came and stood on my chest and licked my face. What kind of cat licks your face?!?! Oh, well...at least she's a sweet, affectionate pet, right?! Wherever you are in the world, and whatever you're waiting on, I pray that you are relying on Him alone, and that you are having a "Mom-learns-to-play-Sonic" night at your house, too. Blessings to you and yours!
His,
Kellye
1 comment:
Kelley, I will put your Dad on our Wednesday night prayer list at church (FBC, Bushnell) and I will send out a prayer request for him on the e-mail prayer list.
I finally got on Marc's FB list and received my first posts tonight. Now to figure out how to get on your FB list.
We had a good outing tonight. We went to Eustis for supper at the Crazy Gator with a girl that I taught with for many years in Ft. Myers. Had not seen her since I retired in '95. They moved to Mexico after she retired. Loved it when they first went down, but things have changed for the worst and they are moving back to the states when they can get things settled.
I am happy things are going better for Hannah.
Thank you for your blogs. Each one seems to be a message that I need at the time.
God bless,
Marilyn Barnes
Post a Comment