Unwinding. Decompressing. Processing. Adjusting. Call it what you will.
At every turn I find out there's more to process from the trip. More I cannot continue to carry. More tears to shed, more smiles to ask someone to share. More stories from the disaster zone.
My first indicator was a gift from my nephew: a Kindle book called After Shock, by Kent Annan. He went through the Haiti quake, and the book details his blunt and deep struggle as he processed what happened in and around him.
I couldn't take more than a couple of chapters. I haven't even said thank you yet. I keep meaning to, but that involves admitting that my heart is still healing. Gotta tell him tomorrow. Someday I'll be ready to read it. Give me some time.
Then there was an echo from my past, a gotta-be-ready-for-anything jumpiness that I fell back into. It had me jolting awake to the slightest shake of the house from the rumble of a passing truck.
Some of the uncertainties involved in this last trip to Japan had me snatching the job of night watchman away from my God, as if I could do it better. A few sleep-deprived weeks later, I finally gave it back.
I cry at the oddest things. Like seeing the flagger at a road construction site with his SLOW sign. Don't mind me, I'm thinking of the flaggers in Northern Japan, who have been working unceasingly in road construction for nearly a year now, and hardly see their families, or what family they have left. I'm praying for their kids, returning them into God's hands, where they belong. And the kids of that American flagger guy too, for good measure.
Meanwhile, my heart is approaching this with broad strokes. My prayers and my dreams tend to be visual. Lately they often have me up on top of a debris pile in one of the cities. There I overlook the city ruins and give the city , her people, and their future back to God. I can't hold all of that. Yeah, there are lots of cities. Only one repeat so far.
Friends gather around me to pray. There's reassurance there that I'll be OK soon enough. That good can come out of all this. That even the practical things, like needing an apartment and a car, will be taken care of. That God will use my time in Japan whether I can see it or not.
With each of these steps, I am relaxing more and more. Tonight I was finally peaceful enough to notice a pet annoyance of mine: having to drive home at night in the rain.
What a mild problem to have. In mid-February in Maine, no less. I could get used to this.
