not flying, nor blooming, nor planted

I just don't have it all wrapped up in a pretty package, friends, so I can either quit blogging, or you're going to have to bear with the mish-mash that is Stacey these days.

We are a lot of good things and a lot of hard things, and my comfort in that today came from Psalm 55 when David said 1) that all he wants to do is fly away and rest, fly far away to the quiet of the wilderness, escape far from the wild storm, 2) that he is totally overwhelmed by his troubles, so much so that his heart pounds in his chest, fear and trembling so overwhelming that he can't stop shaking,  3) that he cries morning, noon and night and 4) that the Lord ransoms him and keeps him safe, so give your burdens to the Lord, and he will take care of you.

King David, all in one 23 verse blog post.

I don't like this version of myself...the one who wants to fly away, despite such richness, the one who is totally overwhelmed when it feels like I should be on top of it now, the one who is good one moment and in tears the next over small things, the one who trusts the Lord greatly and yet from a dark place I can't seem to shake and He has not yet lifted me out of.

I'm so full of genuine Easter hope and awe and gratitude. And I'm so weighed by Good Friday loss and broken, still.

Bloom where you are planted, Sharon's bright shirts for the girls read, and they love them. They can do that, that was the image they needed. They are blooming where they are planted, or trying to.

But this is not the kind of transplantation that gently dug a circle around the roots and moved all the dirt with it.

Mama feels far more ripped up from the roots and dangling and dried out and suffocating than ready to bloom.

And so.

So.

I am incredibly, ridiculously grateful for the beautiful storm-cloud gray van our brothers and sisters at Seeds of Greatness found and provided for us. I've NEVER had a car in my name and we always struggle stateside to find one to borrow that our family of six can fit in, and suddenly so many prayers answered are wrapped up in Craig and Deb's driveway, and it's blooming ahead of me, even if I'm not, and  I am so deeply thankful.

It was so good to talk to Leme and Gertha today, and so painful, that I don't ever want to do it again.

It is so incredibly good to have this wonderful, loving home to stay in, peppered with Easter eggs a stranger-sister brought and full of food someone else's parents purchased and huge trees through every window, I am overwhelmed and undeserving. At the exact same time please stop telling me how glad you are that we are 'safe and home', because I do not even know the address for this couch I am sitting on. And we are NO safer today than we have ever been, in His hands.

I want so much to be a good friend for my dear friend 30 minutes away, and yet cannot seem to fake fun and enjoyable-to-be-with no matter how much I try.  And she gives me a necklace with the latitude and longitude of Emmaus and tries to buy me chicken and Ben likes to hold her hand and I can barely thank her.

A house is closing in Jackson, a house I've never been in, and I'm so thankful to know a place is coming I can tell our children to unpack in, and yet know that calling it home won't be happening nearly as fast. I'm so thankful for the people there who are reaching out to us and lovely, but I've never met them, this family of His.

As we drive further in EVERY direction from family and friends we long to be with and cannot... further away from absolutely everyone we know, I wonder what in the world He is doing, and yet even the steering wheel He has provided.

I have never needed prayers and notes and emails and Easter eggs and help and all the little thoughtful things so much in my life.  Thank you....I am storing up the love of Christ through so many of you in my heart right now.  Keep praying for our family in Haiti...life, so hard, grows harder.

There is so, so much to do and so very little that can be done now that I long, instead of being rooted, to fly away with David.

But there is a Uhaul rental pending and a gaggle of always hungry children and a couch of a brother of a board member to be decided on, and an endless supply of socks to be washed and lost and dirtied again, and so I'm not flying. Nor blooming. Nor planted.

Maybe you've been there.

Maybe you are.

So.

Give your burdens to the Lord,
and he will take care of you.
He will not permit the godly to slip and fall.
I am trusting you to save me.