The Riverbank

There have been three distinct times in my life in which change has come with less than two weeks' warning. 

The first time was in the summer before I started high school. My parents had just announced their resignation from the mission field in Spain, with plans to relocate to Canada that December. The delayed return left me in a bit of a schooling quandary. I was registered to start classes at a nearby high school (I had even purchase my uniform--I was so excited to have a school uniform for the first time in my life! Plaid skirt and all). I could continue on as planned and attend the school for the few months we remained in Spain. The second option was to homeschool for those months, and join my fellow high schoolers in classes after we relocated to Canada. The third option was to leave Spain early and live with my grandmother in order to start high school at the beginning of the year. Being the shy teen that I was and not wanting to stand out in a new school, I opted for Option Three. Less than ten days later, I was sitting on a plane next to my dad. Three days after that, he dropped me off at my high school and then boarded a plane back to Spain until everyone returned to Canada a few months later.

The second time was just a couple of weeks after Thomas was born. Micah had taken a job at a local college, only to discover within two months of taking the job that the school would be closing the campus on which he worked. That announcement came within days of discovering we were pregnant with Thomas (incidentally, he was also out of a job soon after we discovered we were expecting Henry. You can imagine how nervous we were when we found out Cora was on the way!). We embarked on an almost-year-long job search that was fruitless and frustrating. Finally, just after Thomas arrived, Micah interviewed for a Resident Director position an hour south of us. He got the job, which meant relocating to the little apartment in the residence hall. He was still wrapping up his work and closing out the campus in our home town, so it was mostly down to me to pack up the house in less than two weeks with an 18 month old and 4 week old in tow. 

The third time was just a few years later, after we had outgrown the little RD apartment and were once again looking for a job. After many interviews and false starts, Micah was offered a position in Student Development at a small college five hours away. Once more, we had less than two weeks to pack up our apartment and now three young kids, before relocating. We spent exactly twenty-four hours in the town before moving and toured several potential houses. That Saturday night as the kids settled to sleep in the hotel room, Micah and I sat on the edge of the hotel bathtub crunching numbers and comparing statistics. After about a half hours' discussion, we made an offer on the house we would call home for two years. It was one of the most nerve-wracking things we've ever done. 

Those three times were fraught with stress and nerves and a break-neck pace that I wouldn't recommend to anyone--especially anyone with children under the age of three to corral in the midst of the process! And yet, each time it had been an easy decision to take the blind leap of faith and just go. In some ways, that immediate-action type of change is easiest. There was no room for second thoughts--and no time for them, either! There was no impatient waiting or doubting that things would come to fruition. We just went. 

Then there have been the other times. The ones that required months, even years, of waiting. Sometimes there was a promise attached to the wait. Many times, there was nothing more than the hope of something yet to come. Those times were hard in a different way. Filled with second guessing and doubts. Overflowing with impatience and restlessness. They were hard. 

Several months ago, I read a devotional by Lysa TerKeurst. She talked about the imagery that she shares with others when they ask for her advice about making decisions. She compared the potential decision to a long river. Sometimes, she said, we have no choice but to jump right into the river and get swept along with the current. We may not know where the river leads, but we are caught up in it and carried along to whatever place that might be. But sometimes, we have the opportunity to take things more slowly. We get to walk the banks of the river. We study the current. We map the twists and turns. We learn what's ahead downstream. We can gauge the risks and dangers, and we get to make an informed decision. 

Her metaphor resonated pretty deeply. Especially since it came within weeks of our dream for an accessible countryside retreat. Already, the wait was feeling long. We were beginning to doubt and wonder whether we were crazy to even conceive of such an idea. We would far rather, in many ways, have just jumped right into the current and been swept along with it. 

But as the months have gone by (and, honestly, the years since the seed of this dream was first planted), I've tried hard to remind myself of the river. I know what the jumping-in is like. And for something so close to our hearts, something that means so much to us, an immediate change is not what would be best. I know it. 

Instead, we have all the time in the world, it seems, to walk the banks of the river. We can literally scout the terrain around us. We can watch the flow of things and gauge the currents. We can begin to understand the twists and turns and the potential dangers. We can gather the things that we will need--both literal and figurative--to navigate the water. We get to walk the banks and jump in when the time and preparation are truly right. 

In the meantime, the vision we have for this has continued to firm up. It's expanded in some places, and it's contracted in others. We've tested many different directions that we could take. We've taken steps forward and steps back. And we've continued to pray for it daily, to bathe every aspect that we can think of in prayer and thought and intention. 

It is still a long wait. The delay is still discouraging. To be honest, some days we are consumed with doubt about all of it. We wonder whether it will come to fruition at all. 

But the waiting is not a punishment. It's a gift. One that is actually quite rare in our fast-paced, action-packed world. If we want this place to be one of calm and peace, it's almost fitting that it would be conceived in the slow waiting and intentionality as we walk the river banks. 

At least, that's what I'm trying to remind myself on the days when it feels we may never get our toes wet in the water...