With the move to Kenya in February not just sneaking up on us but really more like bearing down upon us like a freight train, you’d understand if I told you some of what’s been going on and how I’ve been feeling. But, for the sake of brevity (and so as not to bore you), I don’t really want to go into all the detail.

Suffice it to say, there have been moments of stress, anxiety, doubt, and discouragement, alternating with excitement, peace, and joy. An interesting combination and quite the roller coaster ride. Mixed in with all the emotions are, of course, the sometimes-overwhelming practical things that need to get accomplished on a stricter and stricter timeline. Add to that the fact that on a day-to-day basis, I’m trying to keep routines and tasks as consistent as possible for the children, so we’re still schooling, still trying to enjoy *some* down time, and so on. Yet when things are “too” normal, I tend to feel stressed because there’s so much to do that isn’t getting done. (sigh.)

Yesterday was difficult for me. Somehow, every “little” thing (which I suppose I normally wouldn’t have trouble handling) seemed magnified by my rather raw emotions and the fact that the baby has been frequently getting up at night and I’ve not been sleeping very well. (Tiredness never helps!) And as has been the case more and more frequently lately, I ended the day thinking, Today, I don’t think I did as good as I should have, but I certainly didn’t do as bad as I could have! Which is not a really good place to be–though I’m tempted to pat myself on the back over my spiritual “progress,” if the truth be told.

But I press on.

And I’m chewing on this, as I wrestle with some things that, in the final analysis, are probably quite “little and common”:

“In temptations and troubles a man is proved, what progress he hath made, and therein is his reward the greater, and his virtue doth the more appear. Nor is it a great thing if a man be devout and zealous so long as he suffereth no affliction; but if he behave himself patiently in the time of adversity, then there is hope of great progress. Some are kept safe from great temptations, but are overtaken in those which are little and common, that the humiliation may teach them not to trust to themselves in great things, being weak in small things.”
Thomas A Kempis, The Imitation of Christ