Processing

There is a great deal of processing going on out here in Alabama right now.  Last week I read a short book written by the lady who put up all the pictures on Facebook that were found here and there all around the south, after the storms.  (see link provided on my post on May 18) I was struck by just how FORTUNATE we were that we were spared such devastating lost, as many experienced.  Their houses were obliterated, even Nan and Doug, I remember going over to see them at one point as we were working to recover what we could from our house.  Nan had collected a small pile of shards that she and other's had found from various kitchen items.  She was planning to make a mosaic out of them.  The fact that MOST of our stuff was saved has taken on a much more meaningful... 'heavyness'? is that the right word?  Perhaps gravity?  Then...

Thursday evening of last week my hard drive crashed. 

It took me a while to figure it out, but this is potentially a worse loss for me than the storm. 

Lon was supposed to be doing back-ups for me and hadn't been.  I could have done it myself, but I tend to leave 'tech-y' stuff to him.  If I try to do it, I end up bugging him all through the process of doing whatever it is I'm try to do, so it's just easier to leave it to him to do.  Well, he didn't.

All of our photos from our trip to the west coast two summers ago were on there, all of our storm photos, all of my homeschool records, including hugely complicated spread-sheets for lesson plans, and the gradebook, which shows what we have accomplished.  My journaling (other than this blog).  My passwords for various websites that I visit, our financial records (including another complicated spread-sheet), etc etc etc... the list goes on and on... 

Now - as of this moment in time it is not certain that it is all lost for good - we have sent the drive off to a 'data recovery specialist' - they will do their best to get what they can off and within 8-12 business days we should know what is recoverable and what is not.  They don't get paid unless they recover something - so it's a vested interest for them, to get as much as they can.  Very impressed with them so far - while I was online filling out a 'work-order' form to include in the shipping materials, I got a phone call from them, asking if there was anything they could do to help me through the process. They are aware that most people in my situation just had their lives turned up-on-end and might need a little hand-holding.  Very nice gentleman!!  The company is Gillware.  Hopefully none of you ever need their services, but if you do - they are the ones to use!!  Even if they dont' recover anything, I'm still impressed with the quality of their service. 

Anyway - back to the 'processing' -- I feel very much like I have lost as much or more than what we lost in the storm.  Often times, when people ask what we saved, the pictures are the first thing they ask about.  We saved (most of) our pictures.  Now we have potentially lost a good chunk of them. 

In talking with one good friend on Friday evening - I was conveying all of this to her and told her that that afternoon I had just sat in the car and wept.  I had to pull off the road, I couldn't drive.  I told her it was the first time I had really cried since the storm.  She pointed out that that was a rather telling statement!!  She's right.  I think this event has taken me to a place where I could do a little better processing of the stuff in April.  The fact that we came THAT close to losing EVERYTHING - oh - my - goodness!!!  Even losing life!!  It's a miracle that we didn't.  Honestly. I've been saying that all along, but a clearer understanding of it has just been forced into the very core of my being by this new 'loss'. 

Or, somehow, now, this removed (by time) from the actual event, I can stand back and 'see' it with new eyes, after reading the book, and then experiencing the loss that I experienced on Thursday afternoon.  Now I can more keenly understand the gravity of what has happened.

Another little piece that is playing in is that I went up to the old house on Sabbath with a friend who was here visiting from Washington.  I was telling her what houses were where, and which ones had people in them as the storm hit and which ones didn't, etc and it hit me (like a ton of bricks, actually - no pun intended) that the houses that had people inside of them were the ones that stood.  The ones that were completely demolished by the storm it's self (as opposed to being 'salvageable' inside, but still having to be torn down, later) were the ones that didn't have people in them. 

Now, granted, that was one little micro-cosom of our street.  There were two deaths on the next street over and four on the street just past that.  I have struggled just a bit with the fact that while I count my blessings, others have nothing to count.  I think I'm struggling with that more and more as I realize more and more just how blessed we were to be spared at the level we were spared at.  I want to take that energy and turn it into a compassion for those that lost more - or at the very least, a compassion for others that I hear about in the future that are hit by other losses.

Often, in the past, as I've come aware of others who are dealing with similar losses to the loss I was hit with at age 7 when my mother died, I have been 'scared' to get too close, I find it painful to come along side them and help them.  I hope that I have reached a place now, in my own healing, that I can get past that, and become someone who can comfort others, or at least sit, and FEEL with them.  It is a journey of emotional healingy that I'm on.  This new healing, and this new awareness, brings with it a willingness to feel those hard feelings and not try to stuff them down, but just feel them.  That is new thing for me.  It also brings a willingness to 'wrestle with God' over stuff that makes no sense.  Several books I've read recently and am reading now, have brought out that God VALUES our interactions with Him so much that even (perhaps, actually ESPECIALLY) when that interaction is me RAILING against Him for some human 'unfairness', He is just so happy that we are 'there' that it doesn't matter to Him, really, WHAT we have to say, as long as we are there, in His presence.  

The healing that has come, largely as a result of the protections and the palpable feeling of God being WITH us after the storm, has enabled me to be willing to 'feel' those emotions.  I'm still learning how, but I'm willing.  That's new.

There is a lot of "stuff" for Lon and I to work through, still, obviously.  We're working on it, and that will continue to take place over the next few days.  The fact that we have done this before, several years ago, and it sent me into a HUGE emotional tailspin that time, and now he has let it happen again is no small matter for us to work through.  But today, as I was driving, I think I hit on one of the lessons God wants me to take away from this - it's a lesson I've had to learn before, and apparently didn't learn all the way, so here I am again.  That is that HE is the only being whom I can successfully fit into that 'God-shaped' hole in my heart.  When I need protection, comfort, healing, etc, I need to turn to HIM, not to Lon.  If God chooses to use Lon to meet those needs, then so be it, but if He wants to minister to me directly or in some other way, then, so be THAT, it's GOD'S choice.  He wants the relationship channels between He and I to be clear of any obstructions, including the 'obstruction' of me leaning on Lon for things that God can provide for me Himself.

AND - in the midst of all of this, I'm 'acquiring' a MUCH keener LONGING for Heaven.  I'm tired of this old world and all the struggles involved in living here.  I imagine God is tired of watching our struggles too.  I'm ready to jump on the band-wagon of "let's get this job DONE, so that we can go HOME!"

So - that is the processing I'm doing today, thanks for hanging in there and reading this far.  Obviously, we have MUCH to be thankful for this year, as we head into the Thanksgiving season.  But also, we are still longing for your prayers to continue.  It's a process.  All of it is.  We're all in it together in one way or another, and praying for one-another is one way we can 'walk through it' together - even if we are far apart - please let me know how I can be praying for you too!!