RESTING IN PEACE . . .

When the one doing the resting is a Christian, the peace part comes naturally -- we shouldn't worry or fret over that, or even wish it for him. It's a given. It's the ones left behind who need the wish, to rest in peace, to hope for peaceful rest.

Our extended family has sent two home over the last week. They started their most peaceful rest the minute they took their last breaths; it is our restlessness that begins now. Ironic, really.

Watching the families grieve, mourn, then celebrate the lives of their beloveds creates in me new hopes. Hope that one awful (but ironically peaceful) day, I too, will be able to accurately portray the beauty and faith and wonder that was my father, my mother. Hope that I will know the love of family and friends as deeply, as evidenced by those standing five rows deep at the back of the hall. Hope that I, too, will be able to confidently profess that God is sovereign and that He is good and that He is with me always. Hope that when it's time for me to go home, I, too, will leave a legacy of faith that gives hope to those I leave restless.

***

RESTLESSNESS, PART I . . .

I have had difficulty adjusting to being back in the States. I knew to expect some of it -- there is a "high" after short-term mission trips that is similar to the high that one experiences during weekend retreats, or weeklong conferences, or even a really fantastic Sunday service. I knew to ward off the high for its falseness, and to embrace it for what is true within it.

So no, I don't think it's the high, and thus the ensuing low. I miss Kremenchuk. I miss the people at New Hope Church. I miss the muddy streets and the crowded buses and the mystery of how cars move about on unmarked lanes without crashing into each other. I miss the written Cyrillic alphabet and the lilt of spoken Russian. I miss the way people embrace each other and sit close to each other without awareness of anything other than being close to a loved one. I miss the feeling of being completely enclosed in love. I miss the smells, the tastes, oh, the tastes!, the sights, the sounds. I miss ... gasp, I even miss the feeling of having to muster up the courage to pee (or poo) in the Eastern-style toilets (a/k/a, ceramic holes in the ground over which one must squat). I miss knowing that I had to rely on no one but God Himself, and I miss having that reliance be rewarded.

I am aimless here. I feel like I have no purpose here. It's not even like our team did so much over there; no, we just pitched in and helped out where we could, and darn it if we didn't have a complete and utter blast in the process. I guess ... I guess I just saw a glimpse of heaven, and I really, really liked it.

It's hard to talk of these things. It has been hard for me to talk about those ten days in Kremenchuk at all. People ask, and I'm sure they ask because they honestly want to know. But they don't have the attention span or the patience to hear all that would pour forth from me, and I don't think I have the stamina for that either. So I catch myself between a hard place and another hard place. And I beg God to not let the memories in my mind fade, for I cling to them for meaning and purpose and guidance. Come to think of it, my difficulty lies not just in my missing Kremenchuk so much, but feeling like if I talk about my days there, that will mean that I'm really not there anymore, that the experience really is over, and that I can only speak of it in the past tense. My word, that breaks my heart and makes my stomach sink.

I think that perhaps my folly lies in wanting to tell everything at once. Or worse, to go chronologically, as if that would make more sense to my own ears and the ears of those willing to listen. No, I think I'll just ... tell stories. I'm not particularly good at telling stories; I'm better at punctuating others' tales with short witticisms (I try) of my own. Sprinkles of freshly ground black pepper on verbal pasta, let's say. But I'll try to tell stories, as they come, as they reformulate in my memory. There are such good stories, I dare say they'll tell themselves.

My only request ... please listen, read, receive with grace. Those ten days in Ukraine meant -- mean -- so much to me. Their blood is my blood and their lives are my life. Telling stories from those ten days is like taking pages from my own autobiography. I tell them with great faith in the listener.

***

RESTLESSNESS, PART II . . .

Part of the restlessness is tied to things that were here before I left and still show themselves upon my return. I replay two particular days in Ukraine over and over again in my head ... and wish so hard, pray so hard, beg so hard that they would somehow be repeated here in New York.

It was just like old times, but better, because something about being there just added extra spice, that some kind of specialness, as if Disney sparkles exploded everywhere, dotting every chuckle, glancing off every wink, floating off the end of every sentence, sparking off of every touch. Walking on ice turned into running firmly with glee, and it was free and easy, eventually.

Not so here. Ukraine was real, but unfortunately, so is New York. Boy, do I ever wish I was back there right now, and boy, do I ever wish I could have a second chance.

***

AND MINUTIAE . . .

I developed my first wart while I was in Kremenchuk. A teeny-tiny thing, the size of two pin-pricks, perhaps, on the right side of my right middle finger. I do love showing it off, if only because I get to jauntily waggle my middle finger at people. I'm not even entirely certain that it's a wart; I don't think that I have had one before, so I have no frame of reference. But it looks like what I think a wart would look like, and the idea of having a wart sort of cracks me up, makes me giggle, makes me want to waggle my middle finger at people to show it off. It's gotten hard and is beginning to fall off; even now, it's just hanging on by a thread of dry skin. Strange, but I think I'll miss it when it's gone.