My "covering of eternity"

I have learned a few things about myself amidst the tender mercies of the week.

As we were heading into town one day last week, I felt out of sorts, uncomfortable, unsettled...whiney.  My darling husband asked if I had anything I wanted to talk about, asked if something was the matter.  As I talked to him, not sure myself what the problem was, the mess that was in my head became more unravelled and clear.

So, tender mercy number 1: a husband who cares and persists in finding out what is the problem.

While talking to him, I was able to see that a large part of my uneasiness has been a little lack of predictability in my life...

...you think?

Let's see...a few moves in the past year, the realization that renting can be a nightmare depending upon your landlord (which makes our situation here feel unstable still), a different culture, a new baby...

Now, I am a creature of habit and comfort.  I can have many children, knowing that I have a system, a pattern of life, activities and rituals that work  (more or less :)..) to help meet the many needs and demands of all of us.  In our house back in the states, before all this transition started, I knew I would wake up on Monday, be able to plan the week for the most part, and know that things would more or less work out.  I could look ahead and figure that those Mondays would be pretty much the same for the rest of a given year.  I knew that by 9 in the morning, the house would be more or less put together and we could start on a school day.  I love that predictability!  Yes, we would have a crazy Saturday or weekend or week, but things more or less fell into a pattern.

Here?  No way!  I am still trying to make sure we have food from one week to the next, not able to currently depend upon my recovering body to make sure that there is food for my children and husband to eat.  So I am feeling a little out-of-sorts with a lack of consistency.

My dear friend Lynda warned me of this feeling of being displaced.  She told me that she always cried for the first month or two in a new place as she moved around with her military husband.  I appreciate her viewpoint, knowing that this, too, will pass.

However, it has made me think about the need that I have for patterns, for routine.  I like to know more or less what to expect, or at least that I have a chance at meeting the basic needs of my large family.  I have, I think, learned to roll with many of the punches that come with having 10 (now 11) unique sets of personalities and needs under one roof.  Yet, here I am.  "They" say: "the only thing constant about life is change."  But is it?

Second tender mercy: daily scripture study...and a Heavenly Father who knows when I will be reading what, when that daily scripture study doesn't happen :).

The next morning, after having this theraputic conversation with my hubby, I read in the Book of Abraham about Abraham's experiences in his early life: father who wanted to ritual sacrifice him, friends being sacrificed, move after move...not even knowing where he would land.  Talk about unpredictability and being out of your comfort zone!  And he went to lands where he knew not the language as well...lands where they even would kill him to marry his beautiful wife!

I read the following scripture...Abraham's comments after the Lord instructed him to move a second time due to the wickedness around him.  He could have whined, complained that if God knew they were going to be wicked in that place, why did God have him move there?  But no, these are his words:
Abraham 2:16: Therefore, ^aeternity was our covering and our ^brock and our salvation, as we journeyed from Haran by the way of ^cJershon, to come to the land of Canaan.

"Eternity was our covering and our rock and our salvation."  Now, I am sure "eternity" could mean many things--I don't claim to be a scriptorian.   However, it struck me that Abraham saw beyond the frustration of his transitory existence, living in tents and moving about.  He clung to the covenants, the eternal covenants God had made with him in the verses above that--the Abrahamic covenant.

It made me think about what eternal things in my life will never change, that will always remain constant, uncontrolled by anyone, but my choices:

-I can be forgiven and find inner peace
-Families are eternal in nature
-I will go home to live with God after this life
-Jesus Christ is my Savior, has suffered, and will always know how to succor me
-I will always be a mom
-God always, always knows what is going to happen, and He loves me, and knows what is best for me: whether it be a life of relative peace and contentment, or a life like Corrie Ten Boom in a concentration camp

It gave me a great sense of security, of constancy...

I can have my "covering of eternity" give me my comfort zone,even in times of great transition.