The Elephant's Weight on a Sad Little Ostrich

It's like counting sheep, only once you've reached a hundred, you're still awake and might as well start counting again. This waiting game is . . . well, I can honestly say that I've never experienced anything like it in my life; it's horrible and certainly no game.

I do think it would be one thing if all that was going on was simply waiting, but every day, or every other day, there is something new from Guatemala, the US, the Department of State, JCICS, or agency, or someone that says our children's safe homecoming may be delayed . . . or postponed . . . or may never happen . . . or MIGHT if we sign just one more petition, etc.

You get the picture. I probably don't need to keep explaining.

The thing is that I do believe this is all God's work. I have not doubted that He is in control. I think about Mike, my pastor from my hometown, who always noted that God plants these desires in our hearts, and promises to continue what He's started - that He who began a good work, will continue. I also believe, as Sheila Walsh from the Women of Faith Conference, how very much God does love us, and I know He loves our boys just as much. I know He is watching out for them, just as he has been in placing them with Maria Elena and providing for them.

It's just that it feels like there is an elephant on my chest. Each day that I read what's new in the political world where foolish people and bureacracy are deciding the fates of little children, the weight just grows. Ray is really trying not to focus on it; I think he sees how hard a time I'm having and is trying to balance it some so that we don't both plummet into a bottomless depression (and my sweet husband, I deeply appreciate it).

All of this uncertainty and being able to take nothing for granted, feeling like the sand is shuffling under our feet, it's just exhausting.

All I deeply want in the world is to curl up in bed and not move, to bury my head in the sand like an ostrich.

In the book, "Hinds Feet in High Places" which I would deeply recommend anyone as it has been life-altering for me. Much Afraid, the main character, is told to go to the High Places by the Good Shepherd. There comes a point when the path is rugged and Much Afraid simply cannot make it on her own, so the Good Shepherd tells her that he will give her two helpers: Sorrow and Suffering.

Poor Much Afraid thinks, I need help and you send THESE guys? because each time she touches their hands, it hurts. The more she resists, the harder the trail is.

Finally, she gives in and takes their painful hands, and slowly they get her through. The trail becomes easier because she has their help.

I think my deepest longing to just stop and bury my head like an ostrich is simly me resisting God's help. It seems easier to me to lie down and just let my sadness consume me. Conversely, just getting through the day is the hard part -- teaching 7th period when I've just found out grave news from Guatemala, or planning to have friends over when I am just so so tired is definitely the hard part. But maybe in all of this, God is offering me help that I need to take. He's lending me the hands of Sorrow and Suffering and I have to hold on.

Ha. *laughing to myself* If you see me in the High Places with grey hair, you'll know why. :)
Meanwhile: here's the update today in all of it's convoluted jargon.