Sunday blues...

I'd already posted today - after quite a long silence - when I suddenly realised that a lot of the blogs I subscribe to are written by YOUNG WOMEN. A LOT of them.  And while they are all marvellously inspiring to read, it hit home hard today that actually I need to link up with empty nesters.
Because that's what I am. Yes, I am still a mother. Just, it seems, no longer 'practising' or 'employed' in the same way as when my children were younger. Because they are not children any more. (Haven't been for some time, if I am honest. I hope, dreadful thought, that I haven't been treating them as toddlers for the last six years. Or even as primary age children. Or teenagers. Hmm....)
So I haven't gone to bed when I should have done. I'm here, on my laptop, searching for bloggy empty nester friends.
This is where I know God has been here before me.
Earlier this evening, I clicked on an (In)courage link. A wonderful newsletter/blog with a variety of contributors. I didn't read it, just opened it up for later. It was the first thing I saw when I sat back down at my laptop.
So I read the post. I scrolled down. I saw the author bio: Deidra is an East Coast girl living in an empty nest ... 
And that was enough for me.  I'm lining up here this Sunday to follow this wise empty nester and see what other wisdom I might gain along the way.
Because I need this help.

Moving less sucessfully

I've been reading a blog post called Called to the Crazy. The author, Tsh Oxenreider, talks about moving countless times and relates how her kids are fine with uprooting because as a family, they’re grounded. 

I wish that had been true for my family. I thought, like Tsh, that the glue that held us together was our trust in God. And it was. But there was a huge 'but'...

I too have moved, but not so successfully. We made a difficult move BACK to our own culture – displaced, disenfranchised inwardly while outwardly we looked – and were expected to be – ‘normal’. The children were teenagers, enduring grief, separation, loneliness, bullying…our lives were crazy but, save that ‘God works all things together for good’, not ‘crazy good’. It was an awful time which we struggled to be positive in.

I know that a ‘good attitude’ makes a huge difference, but I do wonder how we can exult in our calling, rejoicing in God’s goodness and plans when reality so often bites us.

I wish we could have had a better, more trusting attitude. It was just really, really hard and I suspect is so for many.

She claims that every one of us is 'called to the crazy'. God calls us often into the unknown, the uncomfortable and that it's not really so unusual. After all, there are various Biblical examples which suggest that God does indeed call us out of our comfort zones.

Tsh Oxenreider says "So when He calls us to the crazy, we can follow knowing His plans are for His best."

I wish.