Beginning Again

His backpack sat lonely in a corner of our bedroom for the past month. He needed a break from it, from the books inside that that weighed heavily on his back and on his brain. For one wonderful month he didn't worry with papers, required reading, or exams. There was no girl cast aside while her dad scratched out calculus problems and her mama's fingers raced over the keyboard, taking handwritten words to the screen. There was no mad scramble to clear books from the table at dinner time. There were no doubts and fears.

There was just us.

The girl returned to school a week ago, coming home each afternoon with algebra problems and Tom Sawyer. Reality slowly crept back into our lives. Even though we've been on this path for months now, it is still unfamiliar. Terrifying at times. Exhilarating at others.

There is so much newness on this path. Today is a new semester. New books, new professors, new schedules, new apprehensions. I bristle against the thought of the coming adjustments, and pray the start of this semester is not as bumpy as the last.

In his pre-college days, my husband enjoyed lifting weights at the gym. You build muscle by tearing it, he would tell me. Like unused muscles, we have grown cold in our comfort. In order to stretch, we must be torn. In order to be built up, we must first be broken down.

I know somehow in all of this stretching and tearing, we are being built up. I know it.

I'm praying I will learn to believe it.

Behold, I am doing a new thing;

now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

I will make a way in the wilderness

and rivers in the desert.

~Isaiah 43:19 (ESV)