Coming into Light

I sometimes wonder if I imagined Iowa.  It feels like a dream I don't know how to interpret.   We've been here not two months but when I try to picture that old, tired house in the Midwest, the wretched winters, the daily routine; it all seems hazy - ages ago, a barely audible whisper of a time long gone.

Maybe, it's that we came 'home'.  To the familiar.  Perhaps, if we'd moved somewhere new and strange,  I would find myself missing Iowa.  Iowa would then hold the title of 'home'... but I can't quite picture that. 

 It feels like for five years someone put my life on pause.  And now that I'm back, life has resumed. 

But how can this be? This disconnect with Iowa doesn't seem grounded.   Half my married life was spent in Iowa, I gave birth to two of my children there, we started our own business, I was diagnosed with a chronic illness, I started homeschooling.  A lot happened.  Why don't I remember it? 

Honestly, I don't have that figured out yet.  I wasn't terribly unhappy there.  Only slightly. 

I took a long course in contentment and I grew. Unaware, somewhat that I was growing.  And I know that I know that I know, I would not be who I am now had we not lived there.  I don't say that lightly.  That process of learning about oneself through heartache is priceless.   I learned about myself.  My marriage improved, because I improved, I began to better understand the value of friendship, within the lack thereof.  Where, in the first five years of my marriage, I was learning how to be a wife and mother and a hostess, in the last five, I learned how to be a Godly wife, a Godly mother, and a host for the Holy Spirit.

So here's the kicker.  Whatever was happening there, didn't feel like much at the time.  I was going through life one day at a time, trying not to cave to depression.  Sometimes I was successful, other times not.  But God was behind the scenes the whole time.  He allowed it to appear as though everything had been taken away.  My eyes, then, could not recognize fully all that He was giving me.

 I may not ever have this all figured out.  I may never be able to entirely see what exactly God's purpose and desire was for me but I know that He had one.  I know that He allowed it for His good.  For my holiness.

So, maybe, when it seems like not a whole lot is going on, that God's not at work, that we're in limbo, just waiting for time to pass, God is really working something on the inside.

 It's so hard to see clearly in the moments.  It's after the moments, however long those moments be, that slowly clarity emerges.