Somehow I went to bed last night and actually fell asleep before the sun came up. That was Super Duper Hooray Item #1. Then I woke up early this morning and went to church with my dad, which was S.D. H.I. #2. While I was at church, I ran into my old boss from Sacramento that I nannied for, S.D. H. I. #3, and got to see my former charges, Bran and the Bug. S.D.H.I. #s 4 and 5. And after that, my dad and I went to breakfast: no crowds, a delicious omelet, and my dad was pleased to note that there was no banana cream pie in stock, S.D.H.I. #6. Then I came back to my place and hung out with my sister and brother and dad and then I went to go study French, but instead I took a nap, the eighth S.D.H.I.  Also, I finished a good book. All in all, it’s been a good day.

And I have to say I feel fresher. No, no, this isn’t turning into a Calgon commercial. And yet . . . No! This will not turn into a Calgon commercial.

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I’m taking a turn, friends.

It may seem that my life is a consistent relay of these but if someone disagrees I hope they feel free to stay on the straight and constant and leave my spastic path alone. Now then. I’m looking for a gym, trying to be disciplined in my writing, and hoping to commit myself more and more fully to God.

I get distracted. Who am I kidding? I am distracted. But thank God that he is faithful in waking me up when I fall asleep. I’m like those three who supposed to keep watch but couldn’t even  keep their eyes open, when there was the greatest work of the ages to be done. And Jesus asked, “So, you could not keep watch with Me for one hour?” and I say, “I guess not.” And he says, “Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” And I protest, saying, “But there’s an ANTM marathon on!”

Sigh.

I have gotten to the point where I trust implicitly that whenever things seem too heavy and awful to go on, I believe and even expect God to intervene. And the wonder is that he always does. I am reminded and blessed of God by the boldness of Jenny, by the uncompromise of Stephanie and the service of Ron. I sleep fitfully and my dreams are full of sadness and then I wake and walk out into sunshine. Not that every problem is trite. Not that every solution is simple. But God is faithful, regardless, and always gives grace sufficient. And I am taking a turn to more fully understand, appreciate, and report it.

I ask myself, When did you begin to grow? Was it when everything fell apart or did it start before?

There seems to me to be a piece of everything that’s happened in everything that came before. Nothing simply appeared. If I hadn’t gone to a sleepover in seventh grade at the house of a girl I didn’t know very well. If I hadn’t been at a certain Bible study my first week of college. If that other boy hadn’t been bitter, if she hadn’t thrown me that surprise 20th birthday party. It was all so tenuous. It could have all turned out differently. But it didn’t. And this evidence reminds me that God’s plan is sometimes interwoven so by little things that it may seem at times as though nothing at all is happening. But then something will happen, like a couple offering to raise your child and give her the home that you would have wanted for her, and looking back, all the steps will come together.

And this is what I need to keep sight of.

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There are dark times. This is one of them.

This year I have lost both my daughter and my mother, four months apart to the day. The woman I came from and the someday-woman I bore are both gone from me, and that makes me wonder . . . where do I go now? What do I do with my life? How can I now make them proud? What would they expect from me? What do I expect from myself? And most importantly, what does God expect?

I could say this was the most devastating time of my life. But it isn’t. Of course, it’s painful. It . . . twists in me. But it has also been a time that I have seen most clearly the faithfulness and providence of God. As I was going through my mother’s papers, I found a letter I sent a few years ago to encourage her and in it I wrote how God knew what was happening and He had control of it. Reading it over now, I thought to myself, How could I have possibly known that then?

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