Paved Way

It was while the tallest and his bud were out in the pool in the heat of the Florida sun.  While the youngers smeared hot dog grease around their plates in a sleepy haze.  The tears burst forth from my tired eyes as I turned away from the little ones to hide my emotional breakdown.  The only thing processing was, "I just want it to be perfect."  And it's not going to be.  Her party won't be perfect.  It wouldn't have been perfect even if my printer hadn't just all the sudden up and busted.  Parties don't need to be perfect.  They need to be filled with love.  With fellowship.  That's what there will be there.  Love and fellowship.  The seemingly brilliant theme that I came up with just won't be nearly as obvious or NEARLY as cool without those printed things I needed, but I don't suppose she'll care.  
But I wanted it to be perfect.  I couldn't figure out why I was so upset about the printer road block.  Why it was effecting me so entirely. Why I felt helpless and like giving up once I realized thing wouldn't be the way I wanted them.  It's just.a.printer.  It's just.a.party.  

I'm leaving her here.  I'm leaving them all here.  They are staying and I am going.  We are going.  Our family is going.  It's not the party at all.  It's that I wanted it to be perfect for her, because this is my last chance.  It's my last one of her birthdays with her.  It's my last couple of months with these precious girls that have been my community.  That have been there for me in the thickness of the forest of residency.  The ones that I love dearly and entirely and can't imagine leaving behind.  A perfect party, a new purse to work on, a bunk bed to build, various things I spend wasting my time on, they are all distractions.  Distractions from reality.  Distractions from the leaving.  From the pain.  From the uprooting and moving on.  
I won't be here for her real birthday.  I'll be on the highway with the boys, somewhere between Grand Junction, CO and Valparaiso, FL.  
I'm missing the last two weeks of WOW Bible study.  What huge and tremendous spiritual growth has taken place for me through that ministry.  I am missing the ladies retreat that I so badly wanted to attend.  I am missing my dear friend's baby shower.  I am missing 2 1/2 weeks of precious time with these dear people that have walked through the last 3 years of life with me.  And then there's that last month once we get back.  And then we are gone.  It's going to hurt more than I want to know.  It's going to hurt to cry.  That cry that cramps the cheeks and dehydrates and leaves shriveled eye balls and swollen red eye lids.  That cry that clamps the tongue to the top of the mouth.  There's no sound, there's no breathing.  And then the gasp of air in a whimper, and then bear down and clamp shut again.  That cry came when we left those other places.  The leaving is just so painful.  



But then there's the promise.  There's the beauty in the spring.  The new.  The restart.  The unknown.  The paved way.  





The paved way.  How glorious is his paved way.