autumn normal

Long weeks have passed since my last post, but I sit here with measuring cups, bowls, and cookbooks surrounding me, bread baking in the oven, pots and cutting boards poking from the sink. I've been investing in my new love of the kitchen, turning ingredients into meals. I'm not sure how long this love will last, but I'll savor each sniff of bread that I can. The air has cooled down again so we've re-opened our windows while we keep watch for the leaves to change. From a slow, disappointing summer to a bursting, exciting fall. What an abrupt shift, like waking up to a brand new, exciting life from the discouraging and emotionally demanding nightmare that preceded it.

I still feel like I'm recovering from a tragedy of sorts; still blinking and blinded in the sunlight from the passed-over fog that surrounds the ones who support raise full-time. Somehow, support raising does that to us: makes relationships and even conversations forced and awkward. I was worried I was developing social anxiety until it melted away once they said we could go to campus. Church was once frustrating group of people who would not get back to us; Facebook was a place to see how much of life we were missing. Guilt consumed me constantly when we weren't working, even if we couldn't work. As we went on walks we found ourselves just staring longingly at every house that represented a normalcy we simply couldn't attain.

But in a matter of days we found ourselves doing what we'd talked about for so long. With no time to recover, little time to prepare, we were thrown into the waves of full-time ministry.

But the wounds from that hard season still bleed, many questions still do not have answers. And though we couldn't be more thankful for where we are (seriously, sometimes my heart just does flips at how wonderful life has become), the past year, and this past summer, still stings faintly.

Yet, we are living in normalcy. I just made cookies and knew people at church (that I didn't view or treat as potential supporters) and we bought a new kettle yesterday. I can tell the sun is setting earlier, and a leaf or two falls on my shoulder when I go for a walk. Summer is over. Yes, with the exception of a hot day or two, but surely and wonderfully over. And fall, arguably the most glorious month of all, is settling into my soul with more warmth than summer could ever give.