dealing with change

 This is one of the books that I bought this year to use with the girls.  I've only read a few to them so far, but yesterday I decided to look for one that I needed.  And here it is--

Stream, Desert, Wind

A stream was born high on a mountain.  It rushed around stones, over waterfalls, across fields, and through forests and valleys.  finally it reached a great desert and pushed its water against the sand.  Then the water disappeared.  The stream, that was feeling so confident with its life up to this point, could not believe what was happening.  'My water is disappearing - how can I cross this desert?'
Then the stream heard a whispering.  It seemed to be coming from the sand itself, 'Ask the wind - it knows a way to cross the desert.'
The Wind can fly,' thought the stream.  'All I can do is disappear into the sand.  I can't cross this desert.'
'Allow the wind to carry you,' the voice whispered. 'But then I will have to change.  I don't want to change, I want to stay as I am.'
'If you continue to flow into the desert, you are changing - you are either going to disappear altogether or you will become a swamp.'
'But I want to stay myself,' said the stream. 'How can I get to the other side and still be myself?'
'If you remember your true self you will know this can never change,' whispered the voice.
The stream then remembered a long forgotten dream about being carried in the arms of the wind.  It let go of the earth below and allowed itself to rise up in a vapor.  The wind flew with it far across the desert, all the way to the mountains on the other side.  Finally it was released as soft rain high on the top of the mountain.
With this the stream was born anew.  It rushed around stones, over waterfalls, across fields, and through forests and valleys.  And as it rushed along, it had watery memories of its true and essential self.

Everyone gets to some sort of desert, right?  Often the hardest things to deal with are the every day drudgery things.  When something "big" happens, some difficulty that I have no choice but to trust God in and there seems to be an end to  it even though it's too hard it's easier with Him and the people that come around me  Easier than the every day troubles that never end.  Those things that people don't consider important because they aren't "big" and that I forget to trust God through.  The ones that never seem to end.  Living in TX is my desert.  The place where I have to learn to transcend and cross or I'll disappear into the sand or become a swamp.

Tomorrow I'm going to wean Grace.  My little baby that was born here, and it's partly hard because she doesn't want to wean and it's mostly hard because I don't really want to wean her, but I feel like I need to.  It's become a power struggle at times and she's still so clingy that I'm hoping some of that will start to get better after we go through the days of hell when she's not getting to nurse.  It's partly sad because she's probably my last baby.  I can't imagine going through what I did with her if we have another one here, plus my husband doesn't want more.  I'm reminded of when she was a baby and how much it hurt to not be near my family to experience her growing with me... no one to ooh over pictures and say "do you remember holding her when she was only this big?" No, no one here then to truly care, and we can never get that time back with her being a little baby.  It's gone and if it was missed it's missed for good, but continuing to nurse her won't keep her a baby (at least not in the right way) so I decided while my husband is on a business trip I'd bite the bullet and make it happen, and I'm crying.  Crying for the lonely baby-hood that was and for a future baby that probably won't exist, for living in this crowded noisy city that assaults all of my senses with overwhelming.

So, the desert.  How do I change and yet remember who I am?  It's so hard to keep our lives simple and quiet.  The values of the rat race around us are so foreign to everything I love.  I feel the pressure even from my husband to give up what's left of my dreams.  "Homeschooling too hard?  We can always put them in a public school."  How do I fight for what I want our family to be?  How do I keep from sinking into the desert?  I long for a quieter place and simpler joys.  The more we seem to get in a material sense the less I feel like we have.

How do we fly with the wind over the desert?  I'm in the process of reading "One Thousand Gifts" and I feel like I'm being reminded of something I already know, though I would have expressed it differently.  Being thankful for what we have and keeping track of that.  Praising God through anything.  Learning to be content in all circumstances.  The next few days I will be singing Laura Story's "Blessings" song while the 2 year old cries and doesn't sleep and the older two watch too much TV and don't get Mommy time.


"Blessings"

We pray for blessings, we pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
And all the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things

'Cause what if your blessings come through rain drops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

We pray for wisdom, Your voice to hear
We cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt your goodness, we doubt your love
As if every promise from Your word is not enough
And all the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we'd have faith to believe

'Cause what if your blessings come through rain drops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

When friends betray us
When darkness seems to win
We know that pain reminds this heart
That this is not,
This is not our home
It's not our home

'Cause what if your blessings come through rain drops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near

What if my greatest disappointments or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy
What if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are your mercies in disguise