What? She still doesn't have any of her stuff yet? Are you sure? Oh...um...alright then.
On this week's entry, we'll see why Liz can't stop writing this crazy introduction.
***
It's been another long week without my stuff in the last frontier.
On the plus side, having no things has kept us busy exploring some fun sights around our new home. On the down side, well, is pretty much everything else. Turns out that "waiting for your ship to come in" isn't nearly as romantic as it sounds.
We were very fortunate to receive some borrowed furniture from the military installation so I can feign some form of normalcy around here.
Unfortunately, normal household behavior includes cleaning.
I've never liked mopping, but somehow in Alaska, mopping feels especially stupid.
Maybe it's because the floors in this place are the wrong color. Maybe it's because there are two large dogs in my house. Maybe it's because the empty floors are just making every piece of dirt and dog hair *that much more* visible. Maybe I'm using the wrong supplies, or I'm just an inadequate housekeeper.
Whatever the reason, I find myself sweeping up the same kind of mess all the live-long day.
It's exhausting. It's annoying. And it feels extremely frivolous.
As any good wife would do, I griped to my husband about it. (I believe I used the phrase "bane of my existence," so you know, I kept a really level head during the whole discussion.) My husband listened to my complaints, told me he agreed it was frustrating, and gave me a hug...
(Not really.)
He observed the situation, identified the source of the problem, and set out to help me fix it.
It turns out none of my "maybe's" were the problem. The problem was the actual dirt.
The lawn in our backyard either suffered a harsh winter or some harsh tenants, because there is no grass in any of it. We could see where someone had thrown some seeds on top of the dry dirt before we moved in as a last ditch effort, but understandably, nothing was growing. When we would let the dogs out into the yard, they would romp around in the dirt and then carry all the loose bits into the house with them, again and again.
It didn't matter how often or furiously I was cleaning.
My problem was never going to get any better if I didn't take care of the actual dirt.
It got me thinking about how that's true in so many other ways.
I've been working a lot on health and fitness lately, and during these past couple of months, I've hit a snag. I can chalk up my unwanted pounds to my aging body, the stress of this move, not having the right equipment, or the fact that I don't have any of my kitchen tools so I am eating out more than I'd like. But none of those are the real source of the problem. The problem is that I'm not waking up in time to do my workouts.
My morning routine is another thing I've let slip the last couple of months. Before I left Texas, I was setting an alarm, waking up early, doing a daily Bible study, planning out my day ahead, and doing my morning workout. Now I'm not setting an alarm, waking up whenever, working out sometimes, doing my Bible study when I get to it, and making absolutely no plans. I could blame all of this on the interruption brought on by the move, or the fact that it is impossible to go to bed at a decent hour because of the Alaskan midnight sun, or even that it's summa-summa-summer time, and by-golly, I deserve to sleep in! But none of those are the real source of the problem either. The problem is that I don't feel settled here, so it's keeping me up at night in worry.
I worry that our stuff is not going to fit in our house. I worry that our stuff is going to arrive broken. I worry that our stuff is not going to arrive at all. I worry that my husband isn't going to like his job. I worry that my kids aren't going to like their school. I worry that we're not going to know how to handle the dark and cold. I worry that we'll be lonely.---->What these really mean is that I worry that this place is not going to be a good home.
Unlike in my yard, it took some digging to get to the real dirt, but there it is.
Lucky for me, there's a lot of good potential in dirt.
Once my husband identified the source of
Now that I know where my dirt is, I can work to grow something good in there too.
Seed, cover, water, and wait.
Psalm 85:12
Yes, the Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase.
I'm ready to do some growing here, y'all.
With or without my stuff.
(But hopefully with!) ;)
No comments:
Post a Comment