not as the world giveth

You know you're in trouble when you start sympathizing with the Israelites. There you are, with an incredible abundance of blessings promised to you. You're excited and all...but for now you're sitting in the wilderness. And you have been for what feels like an eternity. Sure, you're getting manna and being sustained from day to day and all...but you're impatient. You want the safety of that city you just came out of. You want it's entertainment. You want it's... cucumbers (and all those other strange things they were missing). You start to think that maybe going back to a life where you were less than what you are supposed to be sounds better than waiting for God's promises in His time frame.

Yup.

That's me about now.

I am tired of this wilderness. Being sustained from day to day is awesome, but it's also exhausting--always fearing, wondering--will it come today? And looking around you and seeing others less faithful (like the Canaanites) prospering, and wondering, Heeeey! What about me?! I want some safety and security and fancy food already!

The thing is, for as frightened and impatient as I am, I KNOW God is going to take care of me. He showed me in a way I could understand just a week ago:

Every day for almost a year, I've worn my ipod nano. I use it as a pedometer/running tracker. It has my whole music library on it. I adore it. And last week, while sitting in the Fiction class I assistant teach, I noticed....it was gone. It wasn't clipped to the top of my skirt where it had been. I checked the floor around me, checked my pockets, checked under me. Nowhere.  I had covered a half mile of campus from my parking spot to the classroom, crossing a busy street, and rode in an elevator. Three hours had passed. There was no way I was going to find it. But a feeling came immediately into my heart speaking, Don't worry. You'll find it.

BUT HOW? It was impossible!

At 9pm, class let out. I started backtracking my steps as accurately as I could. When I would reach dark stretches of sidewalk, I would turn my phone on and shine it all around. I even went briefly into the library Starbucks where I'd stopped before turning quickly around (not wanting to wait in line behind eight people for a cup of hot chocolate). I thought of some guy finding it on the sidewalk and thinking, SCORE! Free music loaded nano!

Still, the calm feeling persisted...It's going to be ok. You're going to find it. And now it was even more specific, You're going to find it right by your van.

Still I searched all the way back thinking, This is stupid! Tons of students walk the parking lot where I park. I'm not going to find it there. And sure enough, I reached my van and...nothing.
See? I thought, I knew it! I can't even catch a small break lately!

I put my bag in the back and climbed into the drivers seat. As I settled my weight in, I felt something cold against my back. It was my ipod. It had been there all along. My skirt had just shifted around so that it wasn't in the front where it was normally was.

And then God really spoke to my heart: My child, don't you recognize the feelings of comfort I'm sending you? If I say you're going to find your ipod, you're going to find it. If I say I'm going to take care of you, like I have been...I'm going to do it. I have you.

I sat there in my dark van and cried for a good ten minutes, so sorry that I'd doubted. God's going to take care of me. Of my boys. I don't know how. Nor do I know  how long he's going to keep us sitting in the wilderness, on the borders of those earthly blessings I so desire, nor what else he will ask us to pass through, but I know if I'm patient enough, remain faithful enough, all things will be mine in time.

And that's where I want to leave you all. That's WHO I want to leave you all with--the girl who still has some hope left in her.

 The Peterson's who have gone public for 661 posts now, need to struggle in private for a little while.


This blog has been my therapy, my small piece of salvation for so long now, my good friend and lifeline to the outer world.  I don't know how to leave it. It has been such a blessing to turn tragedy into triumph in whatever I can, and to help others know they're not alone. But I just don't feel like me anymore. I look at my new group of single friends--many who have only been divorced for a year now, and they are so positive and so optimistic, like the world is completely open to them.  And I think...that used to be me. Not that I still don't have hope and optimism in my heart, there are just too many things pressing down on me right now. I see other single friends losing their houses and jobs, unfairly having time with their children taken away, or surviving for two weeks on Ramen noodles. It just all seems so...unfair. That's the yucky doubt in me eating at my faith.

I want to remain a source of inspiration and hope MIXED with trial...not all trial. I don't want people reading just to find out what the next tragedy awaiting me is. I don't want to be the Jersey Shore of the blog world.

So, I'm going to take a few weeks, or maybe months off. I'm going to see what I can do to either settle comfortably in this wilderness, or go knock that freaking wall to Jericho down already. I'm going to heal as completely as I can from the ache I still  feel from Dr.  Yummy's absence. I'm going to serve more. I'm going to try and earn enough income to save my house and maintain a semblance of the modest lifestyle we've had.  I'm going to spend a lot of time learning to recognize that divine whispering of, "I got you," until I believe it enough that I'm not afraid anymore.

Thank you for sticking with me. Thank you for believing in me. May you all be blessed with only pleasant surprises.