Leaves...

Have you ever watched a tree? I intend the anthropomorphism, because the other day, while waiting for a friend, I sat and stared at a few trees, and I began to feel sorry for them. I felt like I was watching the sheer amount of work in growing and sustaining leaves each year and the grief of loosing hundreds of thousands of leaves in these next few weeks...

But I also was drinking in the beauty of the richness of color... Each leaf, whole or torn, lovely or misshapen, is part of a continuum of colors that set each other off, especially against the pale blue of an October afternoon sky. And each leaf interacts with the elements, twisting to the subtle breezes, and catching the waning sunlight.

As I watched and appreciated God's creativity expressed in nature, I began to mull that the leaves had done little (or nothing at all, really) to earn their color, or wave their unique patterns in the wind ... they had simply remained on the branch. Their role was, most simply put, staying until it was time to leave. Staying until it is time to leave.

"Now - I - something - can - do"

"'Not my will but Thine be done' ... in the middle of this period of exhaustion, this anxiety, this particular shock, this prison, this wheelchair, this set of bandages on our eyes, this kind of frustration, this pile of dirty dishes, this lack of understanding.... this unbearable, dull monotony, this unending succession of changes. Whatever the immediate 'now' is made up of... "

Edith Schaeffer, Affliction

The immediate now is always haunting in its inescapability, whether overwhelmed by the work to do, or frozen in place, unsure of how or where to proceed. I've finished my time in Liberia and had a few weeks with my parents in the Emirates, relaxing, observing, processing, and applying to jobs. On Tuesday I'll begin the journey back to Washington, DC, returning to start my fourth year in the happy little house on 15th street...

Big questions loom in my mind, and I realize yet again how often I would just like to know what comes next. But let me choose the way of trust, and in my immediate now echo the simple declaration, 'Not my will but Thine be done.'