Finally settling down

I can't remember how many times I was the "new girl" in school. We moved a lot while I was growing up and it seemed no sooner did I finally get settled in than it was time to move again.

I never did the get the hang of being the "new girl." It seems new girls are always looked at with a measure of suspicion and are forced to undergo close scrutiny.

Hard though it may be to believe today, I was painfully shy as a child. I failed miserably at first impressions and it seemed I spent the majority of my limited time in a new school trying to undue the damage done on the first day. (What a nightmare that poor first impression became when we stopped moving and settled in for good. I don't think I ever lived that brown corduroy jumper down. It was hideous. Why I chose to wear it on my first day of school at a new school is still a mystery to me.)

After a while, I didn't even bother trying to get involved in any long-term projects. I had left too many unfinished behind me. And invariably I would find that projects at the new school were already well under way when I arrived and no new help was wanted or needed.

Some people really thrive on new situations. They are at their best meeting new people and getting involved in their new communities and neighborhoods. I admire them.

For me, old habits die hard. Perhaps I learned too well the lessons of transience. I have long had difficulty setting any long term goals and for years after we were married Danny would be confounded by my occasional bouts of wanderlust, my desire to just pack up and move. Fortunately, that tendency has eased, but I still never seem to get too comfortable here on planet Earth.

That's not an altogether bad thing, after all, this is no one's forever home and shouldn't be treated as such. Nevertheless, it is important to set down roots that will weather the storms common to this life, or risk becoming a perpetual wanderer.

I'm finally making some headway. I have actually planted perennials, planning to stay put and enjoy them until I am called to my forever home. We have daisies, my late father-in-law's favorite flower, growing in his memory. A section of the spirea from Mom's front yard in Littleton is thriving on the east side of the house. My eldest granddaughter, Haili, helped me plant chrysanthemums, my dad's favorite, and eventually I will have success, now elusive, with irises, my mom's favorite flower. I have even gone so far as to make mental goals for the corner of the lot, plans I can't even begin to implement until the fall.

Apparently, I have no desire whatever to be the "new girl" ever again, be that the new girl on the job, the new girl at church, or even the new girl in the neighborhood.

Of course, these are just my plans. And as has been the case often in my life, my plans are prone to failure.  In fact, failure is how I ended up here, in McCook, Neb., which, prior to 1997, I didn't even know existed.

This then is a true joy discovered by those who believe. As C.S. Lewis' characters learned of Aslan in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," Aslan was not always safe, but he was always, always good.

And so it is with God. He definitely doesn't play it safe, and oftentimes sends his children into what appear to be perilous situations, but he is always, unfailingly, unflinchingly, unceasingly, tirelessly, relentlessly good. As are his plans for each one who calls him "Father."

"Now listen, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.' Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, 'If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.'" James 4:13-15 (NIV)