Growing pains.

The past few days have seemed a bit...disappointing.  Nothing specific happened.  Actually nothing happened much at all.  The hours, minutes, and seconds of the day are still the same as always but for me, they seem longer.  That gives one a lot of time to think.  I've been a stay at home spouse due to our circumstances for 15 months now.  But technically only had our own home to stay at in the last 3 months.  We have been in a constant state of transition yet have been immobile. We've been working towards specific goals that keep falling over the proverbial cliff.  Can we say, exhausting?

You know what I mean right?

Like life just has this, uh, underwhelming feeling to it.

Underwhelming.  Defined as failing to impress or make a positive impact on (someone); disappoint.

Yep.  That seems to fit perfectly.

As I look back over the last painstakingly long months of prayer, anger, lamentation, meditation, disappointment, relief, understanding, confusion, thankfulness I can't help but look at where we are and think,

"This is it, Lord?"

Now you and I both know that just by getting up to another day means a journey continues on and the story is never really finished.

But these are the emotions that are bubbling up.

We are in the same town we started in a year ago.  That's not unusual for most people but for us there was no plan to stay...we were just passing through to visit before a permanent move overseas.

Nate working the same job he picked up on a temporary basis which has transitioned into a longer term employment than expected (thankfully).  This job provides for us to live and exist here!  So I am grateful for that, but Nate continues to seek what God would have him do with his ministry education and background.  But not just to do something...to work in a specific ministry position He calls us to.  But for now it seems to Nate's ministry calling is to the men he is working with through his labor job.

So we are left with:

All this time of preparations...for this?  Doesn't seem that exciting when we had the plans we did.

None-the-less we have shifted gears to stop thinking of this as a time of transition but of being here for however long God would have us here.  This includes rethinking all the things we were doing because "it's for a short while".  The first of these big decisions was for Nate to decline renewing another term of his interim pastoring of the church he grew up in.  This was at the beginning of the summer.  Nate was working full time for the labor job and part time for the church which meant no time off.  This was unhealthy for our marriage and Nate's health and wellness.

The next big hurdle was and is deciding where we are going to call our church home.  Up until the last few months we went to the church Nate grew up in.  It's where his parents attend and there was no need to find a new church for a transitional phase.  But if we were moving anywhere and were seeking a church to attend, we would explore churches together to find the right fit.  This is no exception.  We should be going to a church that we choose to attend together as a couple.  But it's strange to be doing it in the opposite order!  We love the people of the church, but feel we need to honestly assess our needs and the churches in our community before we make a choice on where we will attend on an ongoing basis.

We would appreciate prayers to finally have immigration processing behind us.  We long to be able to travel freely between the US and Canada to visit friends and family, but being in process makes that a challenging and uncertain venture.  We don't want to complicate any issues or be separated during this process so we have made the decision to stay put until we are able to complete the immigration process.  There are notices now online that the Canadian immigration paperwork processors are taking strike action which will very likely lead to longer processing times.

We have also mailed out 3rd or 4th attempt to withdraw our petition for Nate to get a green card as we are no longer living in the States or looking in that direction.  For whatever reason they say we have not had the correct information included in our previous requests.  So we have sent what we hope to be the final request.  Once that is finalized that will allow Nate to visit the States.

I do feel that with some of these items finding resolution, we will experience a deeper peace with where we are at.

Tree Tops and Seat Bottoms

Has anyone else feel like they've had day after day of perfect weather this summer?  As a type there is a cool morning breeze coming in the open windows, and soft sunlight is warming the leaves of the trees surrounding the building.  It's shaping up to be another beautiful day, sunny but not hot.  Blue skies with puffy white clouds.  Perfect.

I really enjoying being level with the tree tops in our new space.  It's a unique experience from any other place I've lived.  My freshman year of university I lived well above the tree tops while being on the 8th floor of the dorms.  And I've had several apartments on the second floor of buildings  which kind of puts you in the middle range of mature trees.   The duplex I lived in there were basically no trees around.

But in our third floor apartment now, as I sit in our living room I our windows provide a view of being amongst the tree leaves and a good view of the sky just above them.  The few thunderstorms we've had since moving in I could sit on the couch and watch the horizon of the trees and see the dancing lightening patterns across the sky.

Not a bad gig.

We continue to acquire things for our apartment, slower now but still somewhat consistently.  The newest addition last night was a large bookcase, and the relocation of the chair I've been working on at my in-laws was finally in a stage to continue the work here at the apartment now that its been painted and dried.

Now the really interesting part begins for me and the chair as I begin the process of reassembling the seating structure, etc.  This part will determine if it continues to be a fully functioning chair or just a failed project!   Wish me luck!