Crossing the pond in the rain

“I read your post on crossing the pond, and I cried,” says the Driver.

The Driver is the middle of my three daughters: the Dreamer, the Driver, and the Dragon. The Driver is setting out on a journey of her own, a painful journey. She was part of that particular pond crossing, in the dark, in the cold, in the rain, but now she’s got a much longer journey.

Sometimes life stinks. For the Driver, she’s in one of those times.

She’s been living in a great city on the other side of the world, a place she and her husband love. But his job evaporated recently and that was painful. It stunk. Weeks passed and he had another job offer. It was in a different place and still necessitated a move, but it was an exciting job, and still on the side of the world where they would like to raise their family.

Then over this last weekend, that job went south. A classic east-west conflict, a conflict of culture and worldview, is at the root of the loss. Planning ahead versus damage control at the end. Again, life stinks.

And so, the Driver and her family are out in the middle of the pond and can’t see where the boat is going. The fog is thick. It’s cold and uncomfortable. There’s nothing I can do because I’m neither in the boat or at the tiller. I’m simply watching from the shore.

So what does a shore-watcher do? Watch and pray from the distance, even through the fog. Send messages of hope out across the water like flashes of light from shore. Pray some more. Trust the Man-at-the-tiller to get them across the pond.

I head home soon. I’ll light a fire in the woodstove and put a pot of hot soup on the hob. When the Driver and family finally get across the pond, they will need a place to get warm.