The month of December has been pretty chaotic and full of challenges for the B&W household. However, we are making our way through the storms much like I remember doing as a kid trying to walk to school over sheets of ice after an Alaskan storm (there were no snow days in that part of the country)…holding tight to your classmates hands…looking much like you were playing crack the whip…only you were trying to get safely to school.

And here we are, the B&W family, holding tightly to each other’s hands as we try and make our way safely through these crazy storms that are slamming us.

With that being said, I must confess that there have been days when I can’t help but sigh heavily and cry ‘enough is enough’. Like yesterday.

After dropping Miss Sam off at work I followed my regular routine of scouring those hole in the wall thrift stores for small obscure books. I found two.

1. A Gift for God: Prayers and Meditations by Mother Teresa
2. The Nativity Story: Contemplating Mary’s Journeys of Faith 

Once I was through browsing I still had a few hours before Miss Sam needed to be picked up and I didn’t want to go home. Instead I headed to where I feel most comforted, the water.

The past few days, whirling inside all the turmoil that the storms have brought, has not only been confusion but heartbreak and disillusionment. On this particular day my heart was extremely heavy. Mr. John and Miss Sam were at work, there was no one to hold onto. No one to comfort me in my sadness and heartbreak.

I parked at McRaes, grabbed one of the books I had just purchased, walked down to the riverfront and sat down on one of the faded, cobweb infested benches facing the river.

It was a beautiful, sun blessed day with soft breezes. I opened my book, The Nativity Story, with a heavy heart, praying that the soft breezes would breathe new life into my weary spirit and began to read.

Right before it was time to go pick up Miss Sam, this is what I read tucked into one of the essays written in The Nativity Story:

“In order to feel wonderful when out of control, you have to trust the one who is in control.” Selena Liu

That’s all I can do.

I closed the book, said adios to the seagull who had stood watch on the pier the whole time I was reading, and headed back into the storm.