Where Disappintment Grows

Summer time wakes me up to sunshine and a day full of possibilities, and yet, it also wakes me up to all the nagging little feelings I've left untended, hidden in the back corners of a heart that's become over crowded with them by June 21st. 

So here I sit, spending too many minutes just staring out the kitchen window of my parents' house, not really sure what to name these feelings but hoping that time and slow will heal them, hoping that the Rescuer will in fact rend heaven and come pick me out of the mess I've let myself sink into with months of neglecting my own soul. 

So as I sit here, taking in the shades of green, I see the one little quail that seems to take up residence in this country neighborhood, and being desperate for meaning, I wonder if that could be a note from the heavens that I don't have to worry because God tends to even the birds. 

And yet, I can't help but think I'm grasping for straws even in that, hoping to prove to my dry riverbed of a soul that I can still come up with punchlines.

But then my mind wandered to a time when quail were specifically mentioned in the Bible. Journey back to dust between your toes and a long exodus out of all that was familiar and into the unknown, and we're just as willing to complain about what we have not. 

I'm sorry. Maybe I'm dragging you into this, so I can feel better about myself.

*I* am just as willing to complain about what I have not. 

And so after providing manna, those honey-like wafers, God responded to the complaints of His people with birds. Thousands of birds. The middle eastern version of chicken. 

Until they were full.

Not satisfied, mind you.

But full. 

In the past nine months, I've finally hit a spot where my own disappointment with God can't be buried or avoided. I've been unsatisfied with what He's provided for me, and the fear goes deep that He brought me out of Egypt to die in the wilderness. Dramatic? Oh of course. Felt in my bones? Yes. Maybe the first step of healing begins with being honest. 

So maybe that quail was a warning or maybe it was just a quail, but here begins my deep search for healing, a quest to know what some of the Israelites never figured out . . . how to survive the disappointments and end up on the other side with faith and not rebellion, with gratitude and not quail-gluttony. By God's grace, I'm stubborn enough to hope that healing can come.