Finally

I have had good intentions of writing on this blog every day…or at least once a week…but seeing as I started on May 2 and it is now June 25…I will shoot for the once a month goal to begin with. There is just so much going on now…so much that I want to write about and reflect on. But as I said, there is so much and I seem to be swept up in the next wave that comes and forget to jot down thoughts about the last one before it gets swept back out to the sea.

My life seems so full right now, yet everything is up in the air. This time back in the States has been really good…busy and stressful at times, but good.

Life with Tariq is a blast…it is hard, don’t get me wrong, but I just love him like crazy. He changes every day and just becomes more fun. His little eyes sparkle – when he sleeps – and I can’t help but smile. His new thing is giving me kisses…he loves to just slobber all over my face. Before it was kind of instinctual…when I would kiss him he would kiss me back, but now he has started doing it on his own…and that makes me really really happy. He still gets ups once or twice during the night to eat and I find myself enjoying those times more and more (even though a large part of me wishes he was still sleeping) because as the days go by, the little baby we brought home from the hospital is growing and changing. It is good, but bittersweet in some ways. I still get teary when I think about those first days in the hospital and when he was so little…and I hope that feeling never goes away because it holds so much strength and emotion. Experiencing having a baby for the first time was really a profound thing in my life and I have loved it. As much as I want to cherish those moments forever, I am scared that they will slowly slip away with time…

We celebrated our 6^th wedding anniversary on the 29^th of May. It was crazy to look back through the years at where we have been and where we have come from. Again, the special memories I have of our wedding day; seeing each other for the first time, saying our vows, etc…are slowly fading and I find myself trying to scramble to hold on to them…though I know that they have served their purpose in preserving and steeling our relationship.

We are almost at the end of our crazy speaking tour…it has been a lot…especially with Tariq. I can see why people don’t go on tour with kids. I was always one who thought it would be such a great idea for the whole family to go on tour…and ideally it would be, but it is such a challenge…having a crazy schedule and being in different places all the time and meeting new people. It is understandable why people don’t do it. It has been really fun though to interact with people and share with them what we are about and what is going on where we live and work. It is a breath of fresh air to meet people who have no idea about A-stan or what is going on there…like sometimes to the point of being ridiculous…like one person asked if there were many Catholics there…I almost laughed out loud. But it was nice to dialogue with them and their fresh slate for once instead of wading through everyones’ preconceived notions and prejudices.

We have really enjoyed time with family and are soaking up as much of it as we can get…because it doesn’t come often. I think that makes us not take as much for granted and also causes me to be strangely overemotional/sensitive about some things…but I wouldn’t trade those moments for the world.

Man, I am emotional today…maybe it is the scare that Kaylie’s husband had with his heart this week…catapulting me back to almost a year ago when we were in the hospital in Kabul and the doctor told us that Andy was having a heart attack…weeping as I thought about the possibility of the child within my womb growing up without a father. Thankfully, both cases are not serious, but it has caused me to think lots and to reflect on how blessed I am.

Maybe it has to do with once again being in a very vulnerable position of not knowing where we will go from here. Security remains a problem in our destination…which seems to make everything a problem. So we continue to wrestle with the question – do we move forward with plans, believing that God is calling us to go and will take care of us? Or do we look for another option? Or do we wait until things quiet down? We really have no idea and sit in a pocket of silence, it seems, as we wait for God to speak/move/direct/show the way. I would like to think that we have done this enough by now that we are getting good at this or at least adept to it, but I am not so sure.

This has gotten long enough for now…I will try to write again before the month is over.