down, but not out

oh blog, what has become of you? i haven't posted in so long, the only comments i get are anonymous spammy ones. oh well, who needs an identity anyway?

but i am attempting a comeback. despite the fact that i am not in comeback ready physical shape...

that's my broken ankle making a cameo appearance on tree decorating night. the ankle i broke "dismounting" an inflatable slide at lulu's gymnastics class. people tell me to make up a good story when they see my boot and crutches. but i don't need to. the real one is bizarre enough. they now have banished parents from going on the slides, thanks to me.

the inability to put weight on my left foot has cramped my holiday style. shopping is severely limited. i can get in and out of walgreens, but even that is challenging. i can shop at my grocery store in the snazzy scooters. and thankfully old people love them some kohl's, so they keep wheelchairs in the front. other than that, i stay home. but thanks to my buddy the internet, that doesn't mean that i have had to stop shopping. this fact strikes fear into the heart of my financially responsible husband. he is good for me in so many ways. this may be my least favorite, though most needed, one.

so what i do a lot of is sitting with my foot up. there's a lot of "farm boy, fetch me that..." going on around here as the crutches make it impossible for me to carry much of anything from one spot to another. i did however score an early christmas gift to help me carry things around in style...

strange as it may sound, i know all of this is my real gift this christmas. a gift that has been the theme of our 6 months...REST. i can't tell you how much i have had to keep coming back to "cease striving and know that i am god" from psalm 46 since our move. i have been flailing. desperately trying to settle in. to make everything "okay" for my kids. trying to figure life out. trying to get to know people and determine who my friends will be. TRYING. TRYING. TRYING. when i need to remember that faith IS rest. i can't make it all okay. i can't figure it all out. and definitely not in just 6 months. i need to rest in god. rest in our current circumstances. and now, with my foot up and my mobility limited, that is exactly what i am having to do. and maybe with this external example, i will be learning the lesson internally...rest for my soul.

this experience is not what i wanted for our first christmas without my family. i had envisioned lots of hustle and bustle to keep us busy and distracted from our sadness. but distraction is a curse, not a blessing. the blessing is to be wholly present. alive and engaged. and maybe i am better able to do that this christmas than i ever have been before. all thanks to an inflatable slide...and my own clumsiness.

this may almost be sacrilege, but i have always found the old carol "silent night" to be kind of boring. beautiful, yes but not real interesting or exciting. but i am learning that life can be like that. just because my life is not particularly exciting or interesting from an activity stand point right now, does not mean it's not beautiful. and if rest is boring, then maybe boring isn't so bad as i have always thought it was. because right now my heart is longing to experience the peace and rest that was birthed that silent, holy night long ago.