journal – gianna soderstrom

This is one of those weeks where all the challenges circle around like the steps on the stair climber at the gym. No matter how long you climb or how fast or slow or how tired you are, they just keep coming at a steady and predictable rate. Being consistently tired and having tough mornings or minutes or months isn’t even taking you by surprise anymore.

I told myself this month would be crazy. I wanted the advance warning, so I looked at the calendar and took myself by the shoulder and said, “Yeah. It’s going to be wild. October is a long ways away. So instead of looking at the busyness, look for the rest. Don’t wait until next month to sit down, read a book, admire the mountains, invite someone over for dinner. Look for the rest this month, right now.” I wasn’t mistaken about the schedule. We’re five days into the month and the best summary I can think of so far is that yesterday when I gave up my one unscheduled hour to pack for the week, a container lid fell on my nose and scraped it hard – the only reward for my labor. Oh well.

I’m not good at resting. Anyone who knows me can tell you that. I like to achieve things. I like to have worked hard for a long time. I like to have the dishes washed and the high chair clean and the laundry done and the packing finished. I like to sit down only when I can survey my little domain tidy and comfortable. September doesn’t get to be that way.

In the effort to savor what I have instead of wishing for what I don’t, I’m looking around for the things I’ll miss next month, back in the city. I’ll miss the mountain, with our drive-by view of Pike’s Peak’s profile, misted over today, with snow on the rocky slopes running down towards the trees. I’ll miss the way the aspens are turning so slowly. Already the bright green leaves that blanketed the hills are turning to rust and gold with the cool breath of fall. I’ll miss the wood tones of the furniture in staff housing. Our home will be lovely in the Springs, but less woodsy. This is the month to lean into the things I could overlook too easily.

I’m asking myself, too, whether this month is bad or just hard. Bad things happen; car accidents, illnesses, crime, injury. This isn’t one of those. This is living farther away from friends, parenting longer hours while Grant works, balancing our life between a storage garage, a suburban basement-home and the spacious housing at camp. It’s challenging to cook without my kitchen appliances or wonder which box that needed item was put into, and when I’ll find it again. But it’s not bad. It’s just a hard thing, and it will end.

Beyond all those things, truth is the anchor I need most right now. I opened Psalm 27 today, wondering how I could go for so many weeks missing out on the social occasions that I crave, introvert though I am. Is this loneliness just going to pervade the rest of my life? Will I always feel a bit purposeless, a bit alone, a bit worn out while I chase a toddler around and have nobody to talk to? But Psalm 27:1 says “The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”

My courage and joy don’t depend on friends, on being walking distance from a good coffee shop, on getting to sleep in while somebody else gives Erik a bottle and his first diaper change of the day. My life is held in the strong grip of God. Verses 13-14 of the same Psalm say, “I believe I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living! Wait for the Lord; be strong and let your heart take courage; Wait for the Lord!”

I do believe it. I do believe I can find rest, here in the Aspens shedding their summer summer colors for a short-lived autumn glory. I will wait for the Lord. I will make my heart take courage. I will look for the rest.

My first memory of a valley was a deep, lush place near the home I was born in. We lived there until I was seven. I never knew when the route to our destination would take us through the valley; the rising walls of trees around us always came as a surprise, and always took my breath away.

This valley was a river valley. We wound down between the hills on one side and passed a tiny yellow house that was significant for some reason Mom can remember and I cannot. When I read about Anne Shirley’s visit to the home she was born in, that is the house I picture. As we slipped down towards this otherworldly place, Mom would sing Down in the valley, valley so low… We crossed a small bridge in the middle. I twisted around in my seat to watch while we wound up the other side. The first valley I met was magical.

I recently read Come Matter Here by Hannah Brencher. Chapter five is titled Walk in the Valley. Valley days are ordinary days. They are the opposite of mountaintop days. They’re days where you can’t see out the sides of where you’re headed. You just follow the running water up, up, trying to enjoy the beauty while you set your feet and heart towards the end of it all.

I loved my little valley growing up. I love the valley I can see now; I know exactly when I’ll drive through it. I look over the edge of the range and see it while I’m raising a trail of dust on the washboard-gravel roads.

I came through a season of metaphorical valley-days lately, just like the ones Hannah Brencher talks about. Somehow I’m living physically and spiritually and emotionally with a bird’s-eye view. When I look down past the grassy range towards the spread-out city in the valley below, I think of the openness of space I occupy, the openness of heart I experience, the open-handedness of God I see. It is helpful to see things from above once in a while.

My old journals give me hope. I’m not where I was those years in the valley. For years now I’ve been writing down the almost-insignificant things I’m grateful for. They’ve given me the hope and help I needed to trust God when I couldn’t see out the lush, green hills that were walls, no matter how pretty. I understand valleys differently now. Sometimes they’re just a place you drive through unexpectedly on your way somewhere else. Sometimes they’re places you live, in a little house woven about with dreams and stories you can’t remember.

I know those days will come again in a different way. I won’t be walking in the clouds forever. But looking down from above gives me courage. Mountaintops have their place too. Valleys – everyday ordinariness – can be lovely. Maybe it just takes a bird’s eye view to see it sometimes. Perhaps it takes the gradual descent through the hills singing all the while, the slow climbing on the other side, to recognize the beauty that the valley holds.

Tag: journal

looking for rest

bird’s-eye view