Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Reverse Culture Shock

http://www.oxy.edu/x5228.xml

I'm starting to look up online links to help me with what I'm going through.  Reading that euphoria over returning home lasts a few weeks makes sense and that afterwards comes irritability, which also makes sense.

I'm looking up these things, because I want to be as informed as I can, so I can make the best choices I can.  Choices made without available knowledge send me to be swept away when I could be in a boat, though dealing with the exact same waves.

Thank goodness I have understanding parents who are thrilled that I'm back with them.

I don't find myself nearly so irritable (yet) as I do "limp noodle"-ish.  My old environment's challenges were motivators for me to spend time with God to stay sane and when I wasn't by myself, I was always doing something or with someone.  Now, it's like my props have fallen away and I'm a cooked macaroni noodle kinda boppin' in a dish...

BUT the good thing is that my time at Stanborough has given me inclinations towards keeping the house and kitchen tidy and preparing suppers for Daddy when he gets home from work.  I'm much more domestic than I used to be, and as for my devotional life, it's not that I have no focus, just that I balk at my reaction to the over-abundance of free time I once craved...

I'm not in pain or miserable, but limbo is not one of my talents, but I'm doing my best and I know this rest and waiting period is something that will be good for me just the way it is: it shouldn't be jazzed up or decorated, necessarily.  Oswald Chambers talks sometimes about (I'm not directly quoting; just paraphrasing from memory) how the real challenge of Christianity is being faithful in drudgery.  We can get through crises by the skin of our teeth and heaven knows mountaintop experiences are a high to ride, but the day-in, day-out drudgery?  Yeeeeah.  No glory, no glamor...  Not even all that gritty either...

It just is.