Whispers in the Silence

What whisperings of new beginnings can you hear emerging from the silence of darkness?

This is the question attached to my daily Abbey of the Arts email today.  It is pregnant with possibilities.

We enter into this Autumn awaiting a prodigal's return.  He is coming home a new creature in Christ.  But as everyone knows, it takes time for reformation.  Seldom does the Lord transform us all at once.  And David and I are here to witness whatever comes, to partner in it really.

I read what I can about the difficulties in returning to society after prison and it can be scary.  Thankfully, Josh doesn't seem overly institutionalized.  He has fought against it, and I think that will help him.  He is excited...and a little scared...to get out and begin this new life with all the demands and expectations.  In the past, he's not done well with those.  But perhaps this new man will take them on and succeed, that is my prayer.

So my whisperings from the silence of darkness are that the Lord loves Josh, He loves us, He will make a way like He always does.  Josh truly belongs to Him now and wants to serve Him, so he now is held in loving, able hands.

It's been a rough week.  We needed the landlord's approval for him to stay here and the landlord wanted to think about it.  Time marched on, yesterday we took a letter and rental ap with Josh's information and as we talked....he signed the letter right then!  I must admit, and I hate it, I was pretty much a basket case.  There aren't enough words or pages to hold what has been in my heart since Josh went in.  I'm not sure I even understand it all myself.  But to turn him out in the cold, with nowhere to go....and no, they don't tell the inmates where to go, they simply release them and expect them to show up at the Corrections Officer's office on time, was more than I felt I could bear.  So my mama's heart was breaking at the thought of all this. 

Many pitfalls lie ahead and we will have to be more patient and loving than we've ever been with each other.  It's a big change for my love and I.  We are now used to living by ourselves and not having anyone else to consider.  We won't have the privacy we've had.  And Dave has been absolutely wonderful.  I was in such bad shape yesterday, he came home early to be with me until we could go to the landlord's.  He and Josh have had run-ins, though they generally get along well, but that's always in the back of my mind.  But this man, whose blood children are independent and self-sufficient, has had to be drawn into this drama of a confused and at the time, arrogant, young man who wound up in prison.  Never once has he made me feel that he resented it, and now he is opening our home to him.

The thing that I am not proud of, disappointed in myself actually, is the lack of faith I had.  I know that the Lord could have a reason for wanting him in Corvallis, but all I could think of was how much better off it seemed for him to be with us and I let it get the better of me.  There are Christian women I admire, who seem to pass through crises fairly unruffled and full of faith.  That is my goal, but at 61, not there yet.  And then again, aside from faith that grows by hearing the Word of God, I am how He made me, those other women are how He made them.  I just struggle with this, have all my life.  I want never to disappoint the Lord.  How grateful I am for His love, mercy and grace.

So my darkness whispers to me that perhaps this will go better than we think, perhaps He will continue to make ways where there seem to be none, perhaps this scary, hard thing will turn out to be the sweet, healing thing.  Only He knows.  I, at least, am able to trust Him for what lies ahead today.  There are some other challenges, and who knows, I won't really believe all this until Josh walks through the front door, so many hoops to jump through, but it is true that God is good, and Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.