This blank page has plagued me many weeks now as I repeatedly miss deadlines to get this blog posted. I have dreaded writing it just as I dread the ever impending cold weather that is just around the corner. If you know me…that’s a lot of dread. I love writing on things that move me, and compel me to share. I love to write for encouragement to the reader. But life right now at The Nest is quiet. I hear the walnuts falling like bricks on the house instead of the patter of feet upstairs from residents. I hear the wind in the trees and the swooshing of the dishwasher instead of the banter of teenage girls. We keep busy, still, with the upkeep of licensing and inspections, sparrow events, and day to day administration. My heart aches with yours as we wait in eager anticipation for the door to open once again to a teen mom who needs are home. This once again brings me back to the rest of the blank page before me and still nothing profound to write on. Despite my best efforts I couldn’t create an analogy or a biblical correlation between my trying to catch a frog in the kitchen on a rainy day and our current state at the Nest. Carissa was convinced this was blog topic for the month. As you can see I’ve tried to come up with something…anything.
You see, Never more than in these last few weeks have I had to question the very movement of God and how possibly he could have led us to here. How is it that after 8 months into this journey at the Nest do I feel as though I question more my ability to be one of a strong and courageous faith…and instead find my days being attacked by worry. Will we have residents by the holidays? What will our community, supporters, donors think if we don’t? What does this mean for our family and what we have done to be here?
If I could sit with each one of you that reads this blog…I would look at you with confidence and say “we should have expected this.” It’s true. We should have expected that should we confidently be following Gods calling then we should have expected that the evil one wasn’t going to make this a walk in the park. That before we would get a chance to help heal broken girls, we ourselves would feel as though we have been broken and are ill equipped to serve. That before I would thrive in a home full of people,commotion, babies, and hope that the evil one would remind me daily that just my little family lives here and the house sits unused…that he would turn my efforts to keep it in tip top shape in hopes of what the next day might bring are twisted into monotony of cleaning an empty space. Oh how I despise….no I loathe…from my inner most being the evil ones schemes.
So it’s fight or flight. I choose to fight…even on the days when the waiting seems unbearable…I fight. We fight together…undoubtedly wounded because our God never said this would be easy. We fight with prayers leading the way. We fight with faith that is mustered out of our inner most parts. We fight in the doubts,uncertainties, and the questions. We fight…even when we start a blog post…and we are convinced that there is simply nothing to say. Funny how that works.
Amanda Shaheen
House Mom