This is the last week of the Summer of Fun!!!  It sounds completely implausible, doesn’t it?  When we were kids summers stretched until the morning dew was truly cold and the air was thick with autumn fog.  For those of you living in different climates, this time of year is aka Labor Day.  Now these crazy schools have a fancy thing called “air conditioning” and they feel compelled to eat up the best days of the year with things like….MATH.  MATH PEOPLE.  I use it every day, but seriously.  Math should be reserved for snowy and rainy days ONLY.  There should be a LAW about these things.  Don’t they know that there are creeks that need exploring?  Jungle gyms that need one last swing?  Sand that needs just one more shovel?

Avery’s area of town goes back to school unforgivably early.  When you factor in our upcoming family vacation to Tennessee, the Summer of Fun is coming to an unanticipated and painfully early end.  I keep begging my sister to reconsider, but she wants Avery to go to SCHOOL, and learn to READ and things that I’m certain can wait until the girls are off at a high-falutin’ college where they’ll forget I exist and I’ll have to show up unannounced and embarrass the hell out of them with my homemade goods and produce.  Produce that they’ll let grow mold in their fridge next to the Smirnoff Ices.  Oh yes girls, I also went to college.  It’s amazing I don’t weigh 300 pounds.  My housemates will testify that I lived solely on ribs, biscuits and wine coolers for 4 years.

But I digress.  Saying goodbye to this summer has brought me to a realization that my life in general is “not ready yet”.  There are times in our lives when we are called to sit still.  This is one of those times for me.  My time in Nantucket was a similar calling.  At times we need to regroup, and at other times, we need to simply wait to be called to walk forward.  I think folks who “got religion” would call this an anointing.  I feel like God is prepping me for something I’ll need to do later, maybe even much later.  I don’t know what it is, and for once in my life, I’m completely OK with that.  My day to day is already packed to overflowing.

Greg refers to this part of our lives as the precipice.  We’re looking out over it, knowing something great lies ahead, seeing there is work to be done in the present to prepare for it, and also knowing we may not fully know what “it” will be.  We both feel strongly that what we were one year ago is not who we will be one year from now.  Life is changing, almost swirling around us at lightening speed, and I’m watching my family and close friends, learning to stand still in the storm.  To pray.  To wait.  To listen for God’s direction.  I’ve heard friends in dire straits say, “God will pull us out when he is ready.  But that time is not yet.  I can feel it.”

It’s like we can feel the ground rumbling with the train that we cannot yet see.  We’re hopeful it’s a train and not the horsemen!  Either way, we’re not ready yet.  I need this season to stretch on for a bit longer while I become whomever it is I am becoming.

Some days I grow weary of being a rookie in my own life.  And some days, like today, the sun is bright,  and I’ve rested so long that even my brain feels relaxed.  The girls and I found ourselves holding donuts, looking out over a brand new park covered in shade; a park so tranquil that we could hear the creek babbling by us as we were swinging.  A day so pretty that we felt compelled to take off our shoes and wade in the tiny currents and then walk barefoot into the quilting store to pick up a little fabric on our way home.

And I’m praying against the calendar and the clock and the turning of the days…because can’t they see?  I’m not ready yet.