[*dun, dun, dun*] The Twilight Zone [*gasp!*]

A bout of pneumonia and an appendectomy had me “out of the office” for 12 days.  Not that I have an office.  Nor do I have anywhere near an office job.  [Just to clear up any unnecessarily believed implications behind such a euphemism.] Returning last week was not a hard decision.  In fact, in my mind, it was the OBVIOUS choice.  The fact people questioned it – well, quite frankly, confused me.  It just showed they didn’t really know me. [Now those who accepted my decision and questioned my sanity and the validation of wisdom were a different story. Ha!]  I WANTED to be back.  It wasn’t a question of necessity or allowance or even ability.  I knew it would kick me in the shins and other places of pain and severity (it did, in fact).  Still, there was the desire to return to the place I had committed to and so in had come to love. 

“Very nice.  Sweet in fact.  Touching really.”  You might be saying.  “But so what??”

Agreed.  This has to have a point. 

The thing is, for all my desire and all my anticipation and expectation...the one thing I hadn’t at all prepared myself for was the...

*Dun, dun, dun!*

The Twilight Zone.  *gasp!*

I returned – pumped and ready and perceivably eons out of the loop!  I mean, I was only gone for 12 days!  My coworker with animal growing on his face had shaved.  The lizard had been found! (But I didn’t actually know she was missing...).  The “newbie” on staff was carrying herself as if she were no longer new (not that it really surprised me but she was still finding her OE legs when I left).  The snack clip was back in circulation. People were holding conversations and laughing about things everyone knew but made absolutely no sense to me.  There were new inside jokes and small changes and adjustments. (“Is this new?”  “Oh yeah!  We’ve been doing it for like a week.  Oh, right... sorry.”)  Not to mention I felt like EVERYONE knew just about everything about my immediate history and I didn’t actually know anything but the base of the current world at camp. 

At one point during the middle of the week I paused.  “Wait?  Do I work here??  Life seems so out of place!”   I’ll admit there were times I felt like an outsider.  And other times I felt a little replaced.  Perhaps not the most appropriate feelings, but probably understandable – if you are indeed in the...*dun, dun, dun!*...Twilight Zone. *gasp!*

It was strange.  To say the least.  But there are some important lessons or at least minor acknowledgements to be made.

For example...

Get this – the world doesn’t revolve around me!  I know this, truly I do.  I didn’t expect the world to stop just because I wasn’t there.  But I love to save the world.  And the fact the world survived and did just fine without me?  Probably a good reminder that I can always be part of the solution (whatever the situation may be) but if I step back occasionally, someone else probably will step up. 

You appreciate what you have more when it’s gone.  Cliché, I know.  Anyone who knows me knows I love OE and I’m stoked to be here right now – but it’s not forever.  It’s not what I want to do forever.  I was super frustrated at Christmas with whether what I did mattered and whether I was really being faithful to stick around.  Not being at Michindoh when I was supposed to be?  Not being with campers when I wanted to be?  Confirmed for me how much I do enjoy what I do and how much I do feel faithful in still being here.

People will feel really bad when you tell them that you didn’t know the lizard was missing upon the announcement of her return.   I didn’t really care that the lizard was back because I didn’t know it was gone. That doesn’t mean I couldn’t still be excited that the lost has been found.  Responses are still choices. 

Sometimes when everyone seems to know everything about you and would rather talk about it than answer your three questions about what has been going on at work – it might have more to do with their care than anything else.  In asking, they’re asking to be a part of your world.  I already have an in to the work world...I work here.  But my personal world?  Just like yours, there is only entrance with permission.  It is weird to have tables reversed when I like to be the one to take care of everyone else.  But, well, in the end...they ask because they care.  They know because they care.  They’re praying because they care.  They also know you’re not incapable but because they, you’ve got it...care, they are probably also going to be protective. It’s hard. But it’s okay.

[I could write more things,  Seriously. But instead...] I’ll just end with the fact that God is faithful.  Another cliché phrase, perhaps.  But before, after, and in the midst of my [*dun, dun, dun*] Twilight Zone [*gasp!*], He showed up.  What could and perhaps should have been a challenging and frustrating week where I was trying to knit myself back into a picture where I had dropped a stitch and missed a pearl...was positive and joyful.  God is still good.  He’s working in and through the strangest Twilight Zone situations.  And He’s working in and through me...which might be the strangest of them all!