When I worked for the Fresno Housing Authority we would always tell new employees joining our development department that they should give themselves 6 months or so to adjust to what we did. It didn't matter whether they had a background in finance, real estate, property management, or investment - what we did was just different from all of that. Almost every one of them, when asked a few months into the new job, would say it was "like drinking from a firehose".
That saying took on new meaning last fall when Toby and I spent a day together in British Columbia, and ended up at the Ocean Spray Cranberry Festival in Fort Langley. Down a side street was a fire station crew and their pumper truck, showing kids how they could knock over caution cones about 75 feet away with water pressure from the hoses. The occasional car passing by beyond the cones got doused as well! It was amazing to see what it would actually mean to "drink" from one of these hoses....
I have been feeling that way lately with this move into missions, and into our church internship. In a few weeks I will be up in front of the church, preaching. Last fall our family moved to Canada, then back to Fresno, then into a condo, and all this with the expectation of moving again in the next 6 months to Peru. Somehow I need to still be a provider, a husband, a father, and a friend through this all. And to top it off, face the many, many challenges that seem to continue to cross our paths. There is so much to learn and experience, and so many pieces of this puzzle flying around in and out of my head.
Then friends once again reassure me that this is the right time, the right season to be moving in this direction. I enjoy encouraging our pastor, and the extra time I have with our kids. Despite the colds, illness, floods, flat tires, car damage, empty rentals, and the rest, somehow this will work out for good, for I do love my Jesus. And moving into the month of April, the month of Easter, I find reassurance in the fact that I serve the Lord of the universe, the Beginning and the End, and that I am loved.
Take care friends, and may God grant you joy in your journeys, despite whatever this life throws at you. And may you stand in the face of that oncoming firehose!
Lowell
