Making Peace
Making Peace
Making Peace.....

I have struggled for so long with living on the Prairies. I was always hoping deep down that God would call us elsewhere, especially since I am not running my business anymore. And when other friends have been called away, I have been jealous. Someone said to me, not that long ago, that God must still have something for me to learn here. So I have been trying to listen to what that might be. Sure, maybe a bit stubbornly, with crossed arms, but listening nonetheless. Why I have especially found it hard to set roots is that we have had so much pain, trouble, and hardship here. I feel like it is cursed here, that we are cursed here and that no good can come out of here. But then as I was biking down a country road the other day, I realized this is not so. A place does not make trouble - a place is not cursed. God can redeem a place for us and make it new because it is in the mindset and not in the material: the soil, the earth, the topography.

As I was looking out across the landscape, I realized how calm and peaceful the landscape is. It may not be majestic, as a B.C. mountain or ocean, but it is a calm beauty. Maybe I need to learn this from living here, a simple peace. I would not be described as peaceful. I could use a dose of peaceful. You know, my circumstances may not change but if my heart changes, then everything changes. I have decided I can go on living here, I can make my peace with this town.

I have decided I will go running, biking walking, every day in the summer - to savor the summer to the last dropper full. I will go camping. I will jump in the Fall leaves with my kids and write poems about Fall. I will dress my kids up in snowsuits and go play in the snow. Yes, I will! I will go out for evening winter walks, and pretend the glistening snow is fairy dust. I will take the kids skating, maybe even outdoors. I will go on field trips.

I will NOT play BINGO!