Tricky Waters

When I started blogging I decided that I wasn’t going to think too much about my audiences because then I would have to squelch myself and not really share what was on my mind.

I realized today that the blog has become quite self-obsessed, because it’s really not like me. I also realized, in blogging about my compulsive hobby of house-shopping in various towns, that people in our church were going to panic. And then realized how tricky the waters might be someday, whether it is this year, next year, or years from now, when we do decide to move. Let me set some background.

I am very much like my mother, and not much like my father. My mother always tries her hardest to look at the bright side of things. If there is good to see in a situation, she’ll see it. I also learned from her a complete trust that if I pray that God will do what’s best, then what is best will occur.

Now my husband, and other melancholy INFPs who think way too much about everything, will have a hard time accepting what they would call my naive faith or shallow view of life. (I’m an ESTJ, the exact opposite of an INFP, for those of you who have a clue what the Myers Briggs descriptions are (for those of you who don’t you can learn all about it here.) But I am a pragmatist who doesn’t have to analyze everything and the logic works for me. Here’s how it works.

1) I pray, “Lord, you know everything. I don’t. You know what will, could, can, would happen, and all I known is what I can see. So I am trusting you to do what is best.”

As I described in this lengthy post I believe it to be true that:

God Is, God Knows, God Cares
nothing this thought can dim;
God always gives the best to those
who leave the choice with Him.

2) A decision is made and I believe it to be the best for me and everyone around me because I asked God, believing in faith, to give us the best.

3) I get excited about it because I know it is the best thing. I work my hardest to find the very best pieces about it and move forward, believing that the alternatives would not be best.

So, here’s the tricky waters. In a few weeks, or (please no or I’ll go nuts) months we will either get a call saying “you’re staying where you are” or “you’re moving to __________.” At that moment, I will move instantly into a “positive things about moving” mode where I find everything positive I can think of about the place we’re moving and what Bart will be doing. I will collect those things, most likely blog those things, and share them with my husband and children hourly.

Part of the reason I will do this is because many of them are not like me (husband included) and will need to be reminded often that the world is not ending because change is coming. They will need to be told that the new place is full of people just waiting to be our friends. They will need to hear every good thing I can find.

None of us WANT to leave a place that has been so awesome. I could list 50 things very quickly about why we love it here. And so the only way that I can see us transitioning is if I am the “collector of the positive” and in order to do that, I may have to be a repressor of my own grief. I can choose not to think about things I don’t want to think about, so I will occupy myself in a frenzy of positive, forward-looking constant activity and most likely appear that I never cared about anyone or anything here.

But nothing will be farther from the truth. I have lived in this town longer than I have lived anywhere as an adult. We have had the most supportive and understanding congregation anyone could ask for and we have been much more grateful than we have remembered to express. The school system has been incredible. There are so many wonderful people we have met and saying goodbye is going to be tremendously hard. Just the thought of saying goodbye makes me profoundly sad.

But I am responsible, as is every mother, for setting the emotional barometer in our home, and if news comes that we are moving, I will be the one who MUST remain focused and positive.

But in the midst of all of this, I certainly do not want to offend anyone who has loved and supported us over the last 7 years.

So, tricky waters, huh?