Sunrise

Sitting at my desk with a view to the west, I watch the dark morning sky lighten to a muted blue/grey. From this roost in my office I see the shadowy outlines of two pine trees across the road and the reflection of myself in the window. Not much else.

It's too early for the chortling of magpies, the cawing of crows, the kookaburras laugh, and the raucous calling of various cockatoos.

Our pet bird, a galah we named Buster, is still asleep on his perch. I see his shadowy outline in his cage on the veranda to the left of my window.

It's been strange the last two weeks rising at 4 a.m. to sleepily see my husband off to work in Melbourne. We have 30 minutes to chat, read a chapter of the Bible, he with his tea and organic plain yogurt, and me with my instant caramel-flavored cappuccino. His job takes him all over our state, Victoria, and for two weeks he has left early to beat the three-hour congestion of commuters entering the city of a million or so people. I have found that I rather like the quiet, dark, morning hours after he leaves. It feels like everyone is asleep except for me.



It gives me time to ponder. I think about my son and his wife, my daughter and brand-new granddaughter I only saw for a few brief weeks in December, my closest friend Cheri, my dad and step-mom, my sisters, my brothers, my nieces and nephews; and I ponder how is it that I ended up here, 10,000 miles and more away from them all.

Time flies, and yet it stretches on endlessly when one thinks of the future. I've been here a year and 56 days today. The reality of living the rest of my allotted time on earth in Australia is slowly sinking in. It gives me pause. But when I think of the way my life was before...mostly alone and with my life revolving around my job...and now, surrounded by the love and care of a good and Godly man with time to embrace the things I've always enjoyed such as pleasure writing, traveling, and keeping a good house with someone who appreciates that...it's worth it.

The sky is pearl grey now. The things that were shadows a few moments before have more definition. I can see details in the growing light that I didn't see before. I can now see the hanging flower baskets and bird feeders, and handmade toys in Buster's cage. The outline of the distant Snake Valley Hills is coming into focus.



Such is this life we live for the time we live it.

In our lifetime, there are periods of darkness. It may seem that the inky blanket may last forever. We wait for sunrise and it never comes. Then, ever so slowly, what was unseen comes into focus in a faint shadow. As the sun rises, images become clearer, and the smaller items come into view that were missed before. The bright hope of a new day rises in our spirit and we eagerly sit still and wait for that first ray of light...sure to come now. Darkness will not remain.



Some days, even though I am approaching the half-century mark, I feel as if I am in the sunrise of my life. Sort of like the legendary Phoenix that rises out of ruins and ashes. God has heard my cries for help in my desolation over the decades, and has had mercy on me. I've been given "another go" as Australians say. What favor He has shown me. What mercy is this?

I think of Jeremiah writing the book of Lamentations. His heart was devastated and sore with the sin of his fellowman against God, and that they refused to listen to His warnings. He watched as God's people were lead into captivity because of their stiff-necked rebellion and adultery to the Husband who loved them. And yet he could say this, and I join my voice to his ancient one: "I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. [His mercies] are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness." Lamentations 3:19-23.

I am contentedly His, watching the sun rise in my life, and on this Australia morning, am grateful for His mercy.



Heidi

Contented

February 26, 2008

"When my autumn comes I wonder--will I feel as I feel now, glutted with happy memories, content to let them lie like nuts, stored up against the coming cold? Squirrels will always gather--so I'm told--more than they will ever need; and so have I.

Will the dry, bitter smell of autumn, the glory of the dying leaves, the last brave rose against the wall, fill me with quiet ecstasy as they do now? Will my thoughts turn without regret, from blackened borders, leafless trees, to the warm comforts that a winter brings--of hearth fires, books and inner things--and find them nicer yet?" --Ruth Bell Graham

Autumn is my favorite time of year. But then again, I say something similar with the change of each season every year. In Australia where I live it is nearly March, which is the equivalent of September back in my other home, Washington state. But I find that the change from summer to fall feels about the same, oddly enough.

This morning I woke at 4 a.m., saw my husband off to work, and settled in at the computer by 5 a.m. The fire in the woodstove blazed away taking the chill off the pre-dawn, eucalyptus-scented air. A cup of coffee steamed and scented its place on my desk. I find as I write this early in the morning my mind meanders to days gone by. I don't feel that old, but I am. And I have a lot of memories tucked away in this heart. In autumn, with pearly grey fog forming thick and wet with the wakening morning, those memories dance behind my eyes like wispy spirits begging me to come and play. Reminisce awhile.

As the day deepens and warms with the bright southern sun, heat emanates in the late afternoon off the baking wood of the veranda that surrounds this place, and the scent of it filters into my office mingled with the smell of baked grasses. More memories follow of warm days and chilly nights where the moon chases the sun across the sky as the days shorten.

Here's a memory from a journal entry from October 1998 when my two children and I ventured to Klipsan Beach for the day...

"Fall has definitely arrived, but today it seems to be playing hide-and-seek. The evidence of her presence is in the brilliant colors adorning maples and oaks and other sleepy plants. Coming over the mountain passes this morning the ground was wet from melted frost. But the rest of the day is dressed like summer. The shadows are longer from the low angle of the sun, but it's giving off plenty of heat today. Sitting at the beach, one of my favorite places to be, the sun bakes my face, a warm breeze caresses my bare arms and feet, and fine grains of sand are pushed into ripples across my kite, my shoes, my bookbag.

The cries of seagulls blend with the whisper of the sea today--almost as if there couldn't be one without the other. I watch sandpipers with my nearly teenage daughter today. She chases them and I take a picture of the birds flying low in flashing unison. The birds are cute to watch. Little legs blur in motion then stop, rump in air, dig with needle nose, then do it all again."



On the way home we "listened to Maire Brennan's Celtic music from Ilwaco to Clatskanie; the kids were transfixed and quiet, gazing at the orange streak of light on the horizon above the deep blue sea as the sun edged below the world. City lights began to twinkle in the distance beyond the shadowy hulk of the famous Astoria Bridge. Kimi stared out at the sky naming constellations she's learning in science. Jason sat content in the back and stared out at the passing countryside. I can tell when he's full of thoughts, he sits very still."



Evening is settling in now and the day is putting itself to rest. My memories for the day will do the same. But, along with Ruth Bell Graham, I can turn myself in for the night with a heart glutted with happy moments, content to let them lie like nuts stored up against the coming cold.