I ran over a cat the other day. There was nothing I could have done. I have no clue where it ended up. I got out to try and find it but had no luck. I also tried to locate the owner of the cat but again I was unsuccessful. It was probably just a stray cat that got bored and attempted an ill-fated game of chicken with a Ford Windstar Minivan. Unfortunately I have a feeling that road kill will be a larger part of our lives living out here in the country. Last night another cat attempted the exact same thing at the exact same turn. This kitty had better luck. I have mentioned the scenic grandeur that is all around us here but I have failed to mention that we are also surrounded by dead animals on every street we travel. Thank God I’m a country boy.
Other than the thump, thump issue we had with the cat we have had a pretty good week. It was a busy and stressful one though. We got a new girl in our house bringing our total to three kids. She had some temporary health issues that kept Jen hopping trying to provide for her physical needs. She is very quiet so it has been hard to find ways to relate to her (and hear her). She seems to be adjusting to our home well though. We got enough snow the other day to have a brief snowball fight. I lobbed a few misses at her and she lobbed a direct ice-ball hit in the one spot that drops every man to a quivering fetal ball. I didn’t want to make her feel bad so I played through the pain and kept her giggling while I cried on the inside.
I have a feeling that we are going to have to do something like that very often: keep going even though we are dealing with something that hurts a lot. I went for a brief walk with the guy that recruited us here and he had some wisdom to impart as we are starting to really enter into these kid’s lives. He told us that we are going to hear all of the hard things that these kids have gone through and for a while it is going to hurt a great deal. As we do this job longer we will learn ways to cope more effectively. Often we will find ourselves using humor to deal with things that aren’t really funny. It seems strange at first but I see that it is a big part of how the long timers make it in this profession. Ironically a bit of hardness is required to love effectively in this environment.
He also discussed the difficulty of sometimes seeing God working miracles and creating beauty in the messes that are these kid’s lives, and sometimes feeling like these kids have been completely ignored by God. There is definitely a tension in having faith and living in the world as it is.
Although we see this job getting harder and harder the more that we get to know and love these kids we also feel excited to be here. Even after everything that Jen had to deal with this week last night she was talking about how much she loves it here. I am so proud of her. So far she has had the hardest work to do and she has been amazing. For me being here feels like the most right thing that I have done since I asked Jen to marry me. We continue to appreciate your thoughts and prayers.
Other than the thump, thump issue we had with the cat we have had a pretty good week. It was a busy and stressful one though. We got a new girl in our house bringing our total to three kids. She had some temporary health issues that kept Jen hopping trying to provide for her physical needs. She is very quiet so it has been hard to find ways to relate to her (and hear her). She seems to be adjusting to our home well though. We got enough snow the other day to have a brief snowball fight. I lobbed a few misses at her and she lobbed a direct ice-ball hit in the one spot that drops every man to a quivering fetal ball. I didn’t want to make her feel bad so I played through the pain and kept her giggling while I cried on the inside.
I have a feeling that we are going to have to do something like that very often: keep going even though we are dealing with something that hurts a lot. I went for a brief walk with the guy that recruited us here and he had some wisdom to impart as we are starting to really enter into these kid’s lives. He told us that we are going to hear all of the hard things that these kids have gone through and for a while it is going to hurt a great deal. As we do this job longer we will learn ways to cope more effectively. Often we will find ourselves using humor to deal with things that aren’t really funny. It seems strange at first but I see that it is a big part of how the long timers make it in this profession. Ironically a bit of hardness is required to love effectively in this environment.
He also discussed the difficulty of sometimes seeing God working miracles and creating beauty in the messes that are these kid’s lives, and sometimes feeling like these kids have been completely ignored by God. There is definitely a tension in having faith and living in the world as it is.
Although we see this job getting harder and harder the more that we get to know and love these kids we also feel excited to be here. Even after everything that Jen had to deal with this week last night she was talking about how much she loves it here. I am so proud of her. So far she has had the hardest work to do and she has been amazing. For me being here feels like the most right thing that I have done since I asked Jen to marry me. We continue to appreciate your thoughts and prayers.
No comments:
Post a Comment