1/6 of the way done.
About 17% of the way through.
Time flies. But I am not sure growth and healing move at the same speed time does. A month in I don't really feel "better".
Better is probably a strange term. Is the point of sabbatical to get better? What does better look like? In many ways I think the first month has been as much about what I have lost. Creativity. Hope. A sense grace. Self-control in the face of temptation and addictions. Permission to live more slowly has revealed how tired I actually am.
In The Face of the Deep Paul Pastor asks: "Are we crooked things ready to be made straight? It sounds so good until the hand of God is on on our limbs and we know that to set the break our very bones must be snapped and rehealed."
Snapped and rehealed.
Donan and I started Sabbatical on Lopez Island celebrating the wedding of friends. It was perfect. We had time to read, walk, laugh, watch movies and take pictures. We spent time with our close friends. Sabbatical felt like vacation. But recently...
Snap.
Snap.
The snapping isn't fun. But you know what also isn't fun? Incorrectly healed bones. Limps. Arthritis. Absent of time to heal, the real pain of the past 12 years has too often healed on its own. I have not always gone to the Great Physician.
The shooting at our church.
Dearly loved students disappearing into sin and addiction.
Two buried grandparents.
Countless student stories of abuse.
Under-funding and deep fears about money.
My brother's struggles with employment.
Student converts sliding off of my radar into...somewhere.
Snap.
Snap.
I have coped. But God has so much more than coping. He has healing. Restoration. Newness.
So. A month in and not much to report. Heaven hasn't opened. I don't yet have a five-year plan. Sin hasn't yet vanished. But I believe that I am under the care of the Great Physician. And that is enough.
Some new pics:
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