Nate ~ Today I would like to vent/articulate some pent-up frustrations. I hope you don't mind and feel free to jump to the last paragraph at any point so that you can answer the question I'm going to pose to you; then you don't have to read the rest of this.
Before I can really start today, I have to share some context. I am the youngest of three siblings. There is a 6+ year gap between myself and my brother and even more between me and my sister. As a child I had an incredibly short fuse attached to my temper and I didn't know how to deal with that very well. I kicked a hole in the wall of our house in CO, I yelled and screamed a lot when I got mad (which was often), and I even used to hit things. My parents' house has brick on the lower third of the outside and I used to go hit that until the pain on the outside drowned out the pain/frustration/anger I was feeling on the inside. True, that's not healthy (physically or emotionally) but I didn't know how to handle things. Fast-forward through the rest of my teen years and add almost 7 years of marriage to the most wonderfully patient wife I could have been given and you will notice a change. Not only are my out-bursts not quite the same, but God has granted me a longer fuse. It takes a lot to really make me angry. That means that usually it is the one person I love the most and who I spend the most time with, because in that relationship frustrations have a greater tendency to build up and expound on each other. Thankfully, God has granted me the ability to know how to say "I'm sorry" and mean it when it is needed....Oh, and a wife who loves me even when I'm an idiot. (To clarify, this has not happened a lot. Yes, we have had fights, but we mostly have frustrations and we talk them through and are fine. I didn't want you getting the wrong image.) Okay, that was its own tangent, but important. While I can get frustrated at home and my fuse can get burned up, God has also helped me to express that in a more human and less barbaric way. I have NEVER punched a person in frustration and I haven't punched a wall in years...these are good signs. However, if things at home can get under my skin somewhat, there is one thing that gets under my skin faster and burns my fuse a lot hotter and faster...making me look instinctively for something to hit...
Obviously, we don't have children yet, so that is not the "baby" I'm talking about. Nope. This is the "baby" I chose and I married 6 years and 11 1/2 months ago. I'm going to keep this short for My Love's sake, but I still want to Reader's Digest this for you. About 14-15 months ago, Pam and I decided we were going to adopt. (If you want details on that decision, go to the very first post on this blog.) Part of that was that we anticipated being able to tell ourselves that the school year would probably be Pam's last year to teach. Now that may seem small for most of you, but this is a big deal for us. Pam has wanted to be a teacher for a while, but she has wanted to be a mommy for much longer. In fact, teaching (though she loves the children and her co-workers immensely) was only ever going to be an interim job before she became a mommy. It took us until this past December to be DTE (which means our paperwork was on its way to Ethiopia and we were on the waiting list). By that point, we were no longer sure that Pam would NOT work the next school year, but we hoped she would not finish out the school year. You don't understand what a concession this was. I had spent the last 9 months telling her that she wouldn't have to teach next year. I even told her, as the year progressed, that if the adoption wasn't finalized yet that she still didn't have to teach. So it was a really big deal when Pam said that she would teach, but that she wanted to make it clear to the school that she wasn't planning to finish the school year out. That leads us to the present. Things in Ethiopia have slowed down. Will our adoption be done by the end of NEXT school year?? I don't know. We are praying that it will and we hope that it will, but we can't be sure. However, that is not really the point. When Pam, or a friend of hers, makes reference to Pam probably not finishing the school year and, on 2 different occasions, the response was 1) A waved hand an a "we know there is a slight possibility" and 2) "We aren't really worried about that"...let's just say that it hurts. Now please understand. This doesn't really hurt me that much because I'm not planning to stop working. However, it hurts my baby. It makes her cry to feel like people are being calloused (you might say that they didn't mean it that way and weren't really thinking about it...and I would tell you that not thinking about it would be part of the definition of being calloused about something...it doesn't affect you). To be honest, it makes me want to go to Pam and tell her that she shouldn't teach this next year because I don't want her to spend 9 more months in a context where people don't understand where she is coming from....
I stayed up until 11:45 last night just praying and reading Scripture, knowing that if I had written this last night, it would be a different post. That whole "short and hotter burning fuse" thing...definitely. I felt very angry when Pam and I had this conversation. I despise myself when I make her cry, but I don't know if someone else feels the same guilt and remorse when THEY are done making her cry...especially since she won't let on that it even hurt.
So....where do I rest in all of this? What keeps me from trying to pick a fight, punch a wall, or a face?? Well 1) Reality and the fact that I can't punch problems away, and 2) The truth that even if that did work, God would not want me to. So where have my thoughts been going and why is the title to this post in two sections? Here is why.
Storms are different for everyone and, in truth, even for each person storms come in various shapes and sizes. The eleven-year-old has storms, even if they don't seem like it to me or you. The man who has nowhere to sleep tonight...that's a storm that is critical. The teenager who has a place to live and yet still feels alone, that's a storm. The family that wants children and can't have them, that's a storm. So, to find a way to fix that, to go on a journey in faith and with God's grace, to adopt two children, that's a way to stop the storm, right???
I was sure by now, God,
You would have reached down and wiped our tears away.
You would have stepped in and saved the day.
But, once again, I say "Amen" and it's still raining.
However, as the thunder rolls,
I barely hear You whisper through the rain,
"I'm with you."
The song continues and references praising God in this storm. I want that. I really want to be able to praise God in this. In an adoption that is slowing down, in a place and people that don't always understand and in the pain of my wife that I can't just reach out and fix.
Here is my question. How have YOU dealt with your storms.? No theories here. I don't want the text book answer. I would like to know how you personally got through your storm, whatever it was. Were you able to praise God IN it or only AFTER...or still not yet? Was there something, someone, some quote, etc. that helped you??? I could use your help today.....
