I wandered out onto the front porch after dinner tonight and had a pleasant conversation with our neighbor Dorothy. We talked about books her grandchildren read, the work she has planned to do around her house and calling the police on noisy neighbors. I told her that even with all the crime and difficulties that come with living in this area I enjoy living in a neighborhood. In fact, I enjoy living in this neighborhood.
So, we went to a conference in North Carolina and then visited my parents in South Carolina for a week. And now we’re back. Aren’t you glad I’ve been so good at updating the blog so you know all these important things about my life?
Um, yeah, seriously, we had a good time. I wrote the following in the van while travelling from the conference to my parents’ house. I meant to post it as soon as I had internet access again. Really I did.
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Oh, by the way….
Did I mention that I’m travelling again? If anyone was wondering where I am while Gabrielle is at home alone with five small children for four straight days, here’s the answer: North Carolina (more or less).
We’ve been at the American Vision worldview conference, which has it’s up sides and down sides, but overall has been a lot of fun. I had the option of appearing as my alternate identity (my name tag was misprinted as Rachel Lansberry), the cafeteria food was really not bad, and we didn’t lose any of the children permanently. (Yeah, the less said about that last one the better.)
I also got to watch two debates. The first one just made me really mad. It was on the separation of church and state so I should have known it would make me mad, but I didn’t even realize how mad I was until I caught Samuel Evans looking over his shoulder and laughing at me. Apparently when you’re grabbing your head, running your fingers through your hair, and shaking your head all at the same time during a debate, people can actually tell that you violently disagree with the speaker. 
The second one was a young-earth versus old-earth debate, so I didn’t get as mad, I just laughed at the guy I disagreed with. No, I didn’t laugh out loud, but it was hard sometimes. He read numerous Bible verses which disproved his position while claiming they supported his position. “So, yeah, this verse which says God will never again cover the earth with water? And so you’re saying that means there was no worldwide flood because that would cover the earth with water? Yeah. Did you notice the word AGAIN? Kind of implies it happened once…”
Other highlights include two speakers I’d never heard of before, Voddy Baucham and Janet Folger. They were both very good speakers in style and content and I enjoyed them immensely. I also got to hear Gary North speak for the first time. I’ve read some of his writings, and he was a household name in my childhood years, so I was pretty excited about that. I even went to his session on getting through college affordably. Not the most applicable to my life, but hey, it was Gary North.
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After this was a lovely visit with my parents, which I will perhaps document further at a later date. I got a few good pictures while I was there, so I might post those if anyone wants to see them. Anyone?
My brother Jonathan wrote a blog post a while back talking about how so often we pray for something, but just assume God won’t do anything about it. We don’t expect that God will say yes. Perhaps I should say that I don’t expect Him to say yes.
I am single. You might have noticed. I have wanted to get married in a way that hurts like a knife ever since I was about thirteen. I’m not sure why I started so young. It’s not like I could have gotten married when I was thirteen. But right at the time of life when my sisters had started hurting for friends I skipped over friend and started hurting for a husband. My deep want took the shape of this nasty cycle of ups and downs. I would go a while were I felt okay with where I was in life and I would be able to be content and almost happy with being single. But then I would go down again and feel like I didn’t want to live this life of mine for much longer if I would be alone. I was never suicidal; I’m not disciplined enough for that. I just felt sad all the time.
As I’ve grown and grown up the ups have gotten longer and the downs easier. I was glad for this, obviously, but I kept wishing and praying that the cycle would just stop forever. I would pray that God would take it away, but I didn’t really expect Him to. I would read in all the single books were it said that basically you just have to get used to feeling rotten all the time and I would tell myself to suck it up and get used to it. Maybe someday God would be gracious and take the feeling away, but most likely not. It’s just how life was going to be and I needed to get used to it.
I didn’t notice when I stopped feeling terrible. It’s been a fairly recent change, but I can’t pinpoint when everything changed. One day I reached for the sadness, the longing, the hopelessness and it just wasn’t there. I felt around inside where it had been and there was no trace of it at all. This vicious cycle I’ve lived with and prayed about for about eight years now is just gone. I still want to get married, of course, but the crushing sorrow that I am not yet and the expectation that I never will be are gone.
Now, I can point to some changes in my life that might have had something to do with this change, but that would be beside the point. I think God reached down from Heaven and took this burden off my back when I wasn’t looking. And I think He did it because He loves me and knew I didn’t want it anymore. That’s what this tale is about. I’ve prayed and cried and asked God to do just what He did, but I still never saw it coming. I probably just don’t believe He’s as good as He says He is. And when I think about it I can’t figure out why not. He is just as good as He says He is and better than I could ever imagine. And sometimes, usually when we don’t see it coming, He says yes in a glorious way.
I knew when Seth and Crystal left that my week would start out good and would most likely slowly slope down to only okay by the time they got back. I was right. Yesterday wasn’t bad, mostly because Jana had such a good attitude, but this morning was terrible. I woke up exhausted because Justice just couldn’t stay asleep last night and decided to announce this to the world at the top of his lungs. Repeatedly. He was screaming when I woke up this morning, too. I’m not sure exactly what was wrong with him other than his parents were missing from his life and he was upset about it without having any way to express his sorrow besides screaming and not sleeping. Other than that his life was just peachy.
I was very concerned about this afternoon because the Pieffers left around noon. But Noah napped well and Justice napped okay and was in a really good mood when he got up. I rested while they were napping and felt almost human. We had a pleasant dinner and then we all sat down to watch Samurai Jack, the single greatest thing to come from Cartoon Network.
So my expectations were fulfilled, but not my fears. That’s not a bad ending for a week. Not a bad ending at all.
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