Peace in the Pause

Should I tell you that I've eaten nothing but celery and dry, wheat bread today, to make reparations for last night's dinner?

I could.

But that would be a lie.

And I'm against lying, generally.

In reality, I've had hot Kashi with bananas, a big mug of coffee with toffee nut creamer, a handful of peanut butter M&Ms, a turkey sandwich and about 3 servings of Pringles. And it's only lunchtime.

Clearly, I'm not a big believer in penance.

What I neglected to tell you last night is why I consumed all that junk food yesterday. (Besides the fact that it tasted good, and I generally eat healthy, and sometimes one just has to indulge.)

For starters, Corey is on another business trip. So I'm single-parenting again. This is his 10th trip this year, and I'm starting to hit the wall.

Second, it's cloudy and cool here. Still. And it's June. When I want to swim. And the seven day forecast looks like this: rain, rain, cloudy, thunderstorms, rain, rain, suicide.

I would never survive in Seattle. I must have my sunshine, and right now, it's not happening.

Third, I had a bit of a mental flip-out yesterday.

I haven't talked about this much on the blog, but we own two homes right now. (We're practically the Trumps.) Our old home (left), which is beautiful and on a lake, has been on the market since November 2006. (That's not a typo.) It's in a small town, where the median-priced home is under $100,000. (If you live in California, I'm sorry you just fainted.) And our home? Well, we bought it when we moved back to the Midwest from San Diego. So while it's an average-priced normal home to us, it's considered "high end" in the small town where we lived.

So it sits. We try to leave it in God's hands, because He surely knows when the right buyers will come along. And most of the time, I have a great deal of peace about the situation.

But yesterday, the dam in my mind just broke loose.

Since it's the beginning of summer (which means "it's the season to move" in the Midwest), we've had quite a few families come and look at the house the last few weeks. I think my heart was growing quietly hopeful that the time had come.

Instead, our real estate agent called yesterday and said all interested parties are no longer interested. They don't think the house is worth the asking price, so we're back to square one.

Mentally, emotionally and spiritually, I lost it. Fear and worry trampled my heart and took it over, like the aliens do in one of those cheesy science-fiction movies with taglines like "It's a bad day to be human."

I was just consumed. Overwhelmed.

"What if the house never sells? What will happen to us when Corey switches jobs next time? How are we going to keep affording the double house payments? What if we are forced into foreclosure or lose all our savings over that silly house? What are we going to do? More specifically, what can I do to get a buyer right now?"

Of course, the answer to all of that is, "Be still and know that I am God."

Easier said than done, though, when your eyes are fixated on the situation and not on the Creator of the Universe.

I called a few friends and left urgent prayer requests on their answering machines. I talked to Corey (who was also wearing The Cloud of Despair), my sister, my Dad.

And I ate a kick-butt dinner with the kids at Culver's. (Also known as The Restaurant with the Blue Roof in our family. And for those of you who asked, yes, it's a northern Midwestern thing. We don't have In-n-Out, we don't have Chick-fil-A, we don't have Sonic, but gosh darn it, we have Culver's.)

Honestly, the relaxed pace, the kids laughter, and, yes, the sweet, creamy malt helped me to let it all go and leave it at the feet of my Savior.

Again.

For those of you who know my God, I covet your prayer in this area. Corey and I cannot make any plans for the future until that house sells. God is teaching us much in the waiting -- something neither one of us is good at, by the way -- and we always come back to His wisdom and His timing. But this waiting. It's hard. There are so many big decisions we'd like to make. But until that house sells, we're on pause.

Pray that we'll have peace and faith in the pause -- and then incredible joy when God presses play.