Solitary Saturdays

Saturday morning... quiet, calm, and solitary. I just brewed some coffee and took that first, fulfilling sip, and let out a sigh.

I am almost lonely. Almost. And yet...

I cannot be angry. I am not unsatisfied with my circumstances or anxious to be somewhere I'm not... I am content to just be. I feel like I have come a great distance in a very short amount of time. I feel... so many things. Mostly I feel Father-God, with firm and loving hands, restoring all the missing pieces of my heart, lost somewhere along the way...

I am not who I was, even a month ago. I am new, redeemed, alive again. I have reached a new chapter of the story somehow... wrapping up the old and stepping into new. Still the same story, and yet... we move along.

Life always moves us. Sometimes the season is long, and we forget that we are moving. Then suddenly, without warning, it has vanished and is no more.

I have let go. I have learned to lay my burdens down, and let them stay there. I have learned to sit at His feet and just rest. I have learned to praise Him, and thank Him, and trust Him through the times that make no sense. Through all the mess of loss and horror and poverty and unfulfilled dreams and crying myself to sleep... I have learned.

I still wonder what is next. I still know what I want it to be... I still ask Him if it could be...

But I also trust... and wait.

This year, I feel Autumn in my blood. It comes softly, slipping in through the slight change in temperature, the hint of dark a bit earlier in the evening...

It comes in through my quieted spirit; unafraid now to show the color within... and let go.

I welcome Autumn. I welcome change. I welcome the story that is in God's hands...

Some day I will miss solitary Saturdays. Some day, I will wake up next to him, and wonder that the story changed so quickly. Someday there will be breakfasts to make, and kids to take to soccer practice and chores to be done. And all of this will have passed away into memory.

So I praise God for the solitude, though there is pain in it. I praise Him for the season, for the story, for these Saturdays, and for those that are coming.

I praise Him, for He is worthy to be praised...