I have now come to the conclusion that there is a battle for my soul. Okay, that conclusion was drawn a long time ago, but this time I've identified the overwhelming strategy of my foe: Nostalgia....
This post feels like a repeat from somewhere, but I cannot tell you how much I ACHE to be home, to go to church four times a week because I like to go to my church, and then with my parents because they take me out for lunch afterwards, and then to my small group and house church. Driving the same old freeways, lunch with Grandma and Grandpa, shopping at Ikea with Mom, hanging out with Melissa, Kia or Jamie on a sunny Saturday afternoon.... Stillwater. I just want to see Stillwater one more time. Cliff-jumping, fireworks, swimming in a lake, tubing down a river, grilling a galdarn hotdog on the grill.
These things suffocate me if I let them!
An update for you is that I plan to be home in June for a week. One measly week, but I'm going to try and fit all of the above in that solitary week for "old times' sake." Maybe I'll have to skip the fireworks, but I'm checking.
Life here has become more challenging as you may have noted from my above rant. I enjoy the girls more than anything or anyone. They've become the rocks in my pocket, they keep my feet on the ground when I go all reminiscent on them.
The details of life with my girls are hard to go into, just because of the roughness of some of the girls' backgrounds it's difficult to explain why they can be here for such a long time, or any period of time, and still have their heavy issues. I can only think of one reason: bondage. Same reason you can't stop those thoughts, that secret sin, gossipping, back-biting, or even plain old conflict-mongering. Bondage.
Heavy word for such a silly thing as gossip, or what the ladies like to call "just chatting." Can't separate the two though.
I will let you know that it doesn't look like Cruza will pass the fourth grade - again. This is one of the heaviest things on my heart, but we are looking into vocational alternatives for her since she will soon turn sixteen. Mireya's emotional roller-coaster seems to have down-graded to a kiddie ride. My three Guadalupes are all on the up and up in school! Roberta has to work hard to get a bad grade, and Itzel is working out her transitional adolescent kinks. Grecia's the class-clown and likes to get a lot of laughs out of just about anyone. Esmeralda is the same maternally instinctive one with the occasional leak of adolescence.
We, the girls and I, began a study together of 1 Samuel. Chapter by chapter, everyday they write a reflection on what they've read and we sit down to talk about any questions they might have. Some of them are real "thinkers" and others I'm sure they must already have the answers, but they want to provoke discussion so I suppose it's legitimate.
All in all, if I am able to pray off the nostalgia, focus on my girls and my work, seek God with all that I am, I'm good. Okay. Cucumber-like. If I don't do these things, well, I haven't yet tried to not do them. I suspect I'd end up home in a heap, well before my time.
Keep me in your prayers!
