Sunday, March 31, 2019

From The Land of Coffee & Wifi

Post surgery recovery is in full swing and going well. As of last week, we're all back together as one big happy family and the kids are learning that "post surgery recovery" means ALOT of downtime, not thrill-a-minute-entertainment. Sorry kids...welcome to LIFE, the healing process and rest. We're thankful to have gotten the "all clear" from the doc and we'll head back to our normal life, schedule and routine April 10th.

In the meantime, we're enjoying the land of, well....everything! The grocery stores here, although a bit different from the US, have everything (and more!) that we could ever want to eat. I'm loving not making everything by scratch, bleaching/washing the veggies and I'm pretty sure we've eaten sandwiches, with real lunchmeat and cheese slices, every.single.day. And have I mentioned the coffee?? Starbucks tried to come in years ago, but couldn't make it because the coffee shops and cafes do such an awesome job. Yeah...that's definitely been a perk (no pun intended ;))

This unexpected detour has made me stop (literally and figuratively) and think about rest. I went from, what felt like running100 miles an hour, transitioning out of one job, training to move into another, getting our family ready to be apart from each other for several weeks, coordinating our schedules on top of the "everyday" goings on, needing more hours in a day than I was given. And then? I got a plane by myself for the first time in over 20 years and everything came to a screeching halt. There were no kids and schedules to take care of, there wasn't much work to work on. No responsibilities. Like the kids wanting constant entertainment, I found myself with nothing to do. The highlight of my day was retrieving frozen peas for Jason to ice his leg and watching the time for his next dose of medication. That's it. No agenda, no schedule. Nothing but time on my hands.

I've struggled with resting the last few weeks. As a working mom and wife living overseas in a developing country, there is constant work to just make daily life happen. Apparently, it doesn't take me long to get wrapped up in the routine of my every day and forgetting to take time out to really rest. I'm not just talking about rest as in sleep, but truly unplugging from the daily routine. Praying. Spending time with the Lord. Or just enjoying the silence that is just being. (That was easier when there weren't 3 kids running around!)

True rest is something I know I need to work on when we get back. We already know we'll hit the ground running the day after we return with work meetings, responsibilities, school and the normal routine, but I want my response to the craziness to be different. I need to rest. My family needs me to rest. And yes, I really think the Bible tells us we need to rest.

Now it's just coming up with a plan to make that happen.

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