Sometimes when people asking me how I am, I start crying. So. That has been answering the question pretty effectively lately. I mean, it at least cuts the conversation short.
There are five more weeks of school. I turned in my separation paperwork. I am officially not teaching next year. That is all I know.
The answers I was sure would materialize by Christmas, didn’t. The questions I was sure would be answered by Spring Break, haven’t been. I told God I just really really needed to know by April 14. Apparently God thinks otherwise.
I appreciate how many people care about us and our lives. I wish I had answers for you when you ask. I just don’t know…anything really. I don’t know if we are moving. I don’t know if I am going to the seminary or if I will ultimately need to defer for a year. I don’t know if I should Priscilla’s name in the pre-k lottery. I don’t know.
The church has a meal train for births and deaths, but where is the sign up sheet for I just need help getting through the day because the uncertainty is weighing and I have been giving into my children on a regular basis because I don’t have the energy to fight them. Where is that sign up?
I know how to sign up for casserole delivery when a woman in my church delivers triplets. I know how to get someone’s mail when they are out of town for a funeral. But what do you do when life is just too hard? When the daily grind how ground you to dust and you just can’t do it anymore.
I don’t know how to ask for help when I don’t know when the need will stop. I don’t know if it is proper church etiquette to keep putting the same need in the prayer request blank. I don’t know how to teach, and parent, and write and edit and do all the things I could manage even six months ago when I can’t even remember to eat lunch every day.
I don’t know how to tell you this without my mom emailing me to make sure I am okay. I don’t know how to grieve a job I love that isn’t the same anymore. I don’t know how to leave my students without an explanation of what is coming next. I don’t know how to stop the tears and I don’t know how to cry with dignity at the copy machine.
I don’t want anyone to worry about me. I know we are going to be okay. I mean, I am choosing to believe that, but right now in this moment. This part is hard. I don’t know that there is an end date on that. Every end date I have set has been ignored by the universe.
But I also need to be allowed to feel like this. I need it to be okay to my community that I am terrified right now. I need to see it as radical uncertainty before I can see it as a grand adventure. I need to be not okay.
Every time I pray, God is there, but silent. And every time I get mad, I get sad, I am confused, God is still there, silent but not shocked. Almost relieved for me that I am finally moving through.
The season is hard, but it is made a little easier by speaking it out loud.
Abby Norman 
I’m finishing my first semester of seminary, and I need that casserole-to-get-through-today, too. Waiting is so hard, but this tension is so important and so precious because through it we are refined. Praying for you to receive what is to be had, and to be surrounded with love and strength.
Abby, thank you for writing this.
I relate to this:
“I don’t know how to ask for help when I don’t know when the need will stop.”
also:
“The season is hard, but it is made a little easier by speaking it out loud.”
may God’s presence be apparent in your life as you seek answers, even if you have to wait even more.
On my end, it sounds as if your job and your calling are no longer one and the same. So, you’re grieving the job that used to be…the job that has, in a sense, died. I don’t know you, but my sense of you is to say, yes, I think you’ll be ok, too. But, do give yourself sufficient time to grieve before moving on to the Next Big Thing. May you continue to feel God quietly listening and comforting you with His presence. ❤
Put Priscilla’s name in the pre-k lottery. Take care of the small things while the big things sort themselves out. Limbo is so dang hard!! Wish I could bring you something delicious.
I know that I already said this on another recent post but, wow this is just SO familiar dear one. Hope it’s not tacky to include a link to one of my posts during this awful awful season a year or so ago. There is a light at the end of your seeminly infiinty length tunnel. http://www.recoveringchurchlady.com/2015/08/your-story-is-not-over-you-just-might.html
I love you.
Random idea. We really need teachers at http://www.fia.edu.ph. a school for missionary kids in the southern Philippines. Freedom in the classroom. Great students. Supporting all kinds of mission work. Blessings as your continue your journey!