Today Natalie Ogbourne joins us to share about her fight for hope in the midst of discouragement and despair. Natalie is a hope*writer who loves being outdoors. Be sure to connect with her through the links at the end of her post.
Something was changing with my husband’s job. We didn’t know what, but it was obvious our days in our comfortable little house and our comfortable little life were ebbing away. Every afternoon when he walked through the door, I arched my eyebrows and asked, “How was your day? Anything interesting?” And every day, he would tell me no.
En route to a family vacation, my husband spent a day in meetings at his company’s headquarters. The kids and I poked around downtown, measuring the hours until we could pick him up and head south. They relished the freedom from school and I reveled in the knowledge that on this day I wouldn’t have to ask the loaded question, that he wouldn’t have news, that I wouldn’t have to think about our future for a whole week.
And then he got into the van. “They asked me to come back here,” he whispered.
I should have seen it coming.
When we arrived at North Carolina’s outer banks, the cold November Atlantic rolled out like a white carpet and invited us in. While the locals wrapped themselves in sweaters, we donned swimsuits and headed for the water.
By day I reclined on the warm sand and wondered what it would mean to move. At night I propped myself against the pillows and scoured the internet for acreages.
Eventually my family pried me from my perch on the shore. One timid step at a time, I waded in, first up to my ankles, then my knees, then my hips before I braved the bracing swells and plunged in to join their quest to break past the place where the waves broke so they could ride their rafts back to shore.
It wasn’t as easy as it looked.
It required some semblance of balance. And timing. And strength. Endurance and comfort with water.
None of these come naturally to me.
I figured it out, though, and managed to maneuver back to where the surf met the sand, where I let go of the board, stood up, and stepped forward.
“Wait, Mom,” my son called. As I looked his way the ocean surged and knocked me down. I was no match for the force of the wave . It pushed me under, swirled me around, and spat me out. I crawled toward dry sand abraded, bedraggled, and breathless.
I hadn’t seen it coming.
“I tried to tell you to wait for the wave to pass before you stood up,” my son said as he reached to help me up.
I’d have been fine if I’d waited. Unfortunately, that doesn’t come naturally to me either.
Inside ten weeks we’d packed up and bid our farewells to our old, comfortable life and fallen off the moving van at our new one. We’d relocated before—three times. I knew it wasn’t easy, that it required balance. Timing. Strength. Endurance. And none of those come naturally to me.
Easy or not, settling in was our only choice, so we unpacked. We located the grocery store and the park. Found doctors and dentists. Procured library cards and visited churches.
It’s a slow process, settling in, but I stood straight and stepped forward only to be knocked down and pushed under, swirled around and spat onto the shore by a wave which left me abraded, bedraggled, and breathless.
I didn’t see it coming.
Never had I felt like a stranger for so long. Never had a connection felt so hard. Never had a felt so alone, so alienated from people and abandoned by God.
Years I spent that way, struggling to stand, only to get swept off of my feet by the force of a wave and emerge from the water more disheveled and disheartened than when I set out.
And then I noticed that there’d been a voice, one that I’d missed with all the noise from the waves, a voice whispering, “Wait.” I’d heard it early on, but dismissed it because it didn’t make sense. I’d heard in in a friend’s encouragement that these things take time, but discounted it because she’s never moved. I heard it echo in words about mounting up on eagle’s wings but disregarded it because, frankly, I didn’t believe it applied.
I didn’t believe it applied because I didn’t know settling in could be this hard. I didn’t believe connections among God’s people could feel this impossible. I didn’t believe anything could be more necessary than companionship in our new hometown.
The voice spoke louder when—after five years of fighting the waves—I opened a book I’d been meaning to read for ten years and remembered that God’s people have always been waiting for something, that it’s by design that we wait, that perhaps what we wait for is not always the most necessary thing.
And there I began to crawl away from the waves to wage war against despair. I fought not with anger but with hope, with the belief that there could be a purpose in the waiting, with the knowledge that there was indeed something more necessary than human companionship.
There is the companionship of God.
Natalie Ogbourne is fascinated by the roads we wander and the lessons they teach. She writes about life’s journey—about faith, family, and adventure—and especially the places where they intersect. She’s a conflicted outdoorsy type who prefers high heels to sensible shoes and struggles to pull herself away from all those urgent things which demand attention indoors. And because she loves hiking and the places our roads take us, she’s always got her eyes open for a skirt that will stand up to the trail.
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