It has not been my intention to go two and a half weeks without a blog post. Nor was it our intention to stay in Tennessee for a month, but when we left on Nov. 30th, we found ourselves having spent 29 days there.

When we began our trip on Nov 1, we guessed we’d be moving faster.  Although we have had many mechanical issues since leaving on our trip, our stress level about it has been pretty low.  I believe I benefitted from having to slow down.  I did not realize the transition from working to retirement would require such an adjustment period.

Throughout my working career, when I heard someone say, “I could never retire, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself!” I thought, “I know a hundred things I’d do if I retired!”  In the last several years of working,  I have been very driven to accomplish a lot.  That meant long hours of work, to-do lists that grew no matter how many items I completed, little sleep that was interrupted with phone calls and going out on nursing visits, waking early to work to meet deadlines, little downtime, lots of stress.  Now, downtime is all I have!  Surprisingly, (at least to me) it has not been an easy adjustment, and I continue to be challenged by it.

I was blessed to know that nursing–and in particular, hospice–was my calling.  It was, without a doubt, the work that God had called and equipped me to do.  I had prayed continuously for months when trying to decide whether I really wanted to leave that. Even after seemingly getting my answer, I spent the first several weeks continuing to question whether I was doing the right thing.  “Lord,” I prayed, “Do you really mean for me to believe that it is OK for me to be so self-indulgent?”  Eventually, this question gave way to plans on how I would justify my early retirement.

I planned that we would find ways to be salt and light wherever we went.  We would try to spread the love of God to all we met. We would find ways to contribute to each community we stayed in for any period of time.  Maybe we would volunteer somewhere on Thanksgiving, feeding the homeless and other less fortunate people.  I began thinking of what I might put in blessing bags we could carry with us – toiletries, phone cards, socks, etc. for any homeless people we came across.  I informed Kevin that he needed to help think of ways we could contribute and minister to others–maybe organize hymn-sings on Sunday at the campgrounds where we stayed.  We even started imagining the logistics of a mobile ramp-building project!

It didn’t take long before I realized I was so used to the need to do something all the time, I was simply trying to find things that needed to be done.  Surprisingly, in my prayers and experiences, the message that I seemed to get from the Lord was not, “Yeah, that’s it, Kate!  You’ve got it!  DO that!”  but instead, the repeated, gentle, loving responses,  “Enough.  Slow down.  Stop.  Rest in me.  Stop doing.  Be still.  Just be for a while.  You need to rest now.”  For someone who has worked since childhood, these were strange messages for me and it took me awhile to hear them,  thus all the repetition!  I finally realized that I am actually being called to NOT work or even DO anything right now!  Intellectually, it was easy to answer that call, but learning how to do that and be content with just being for a while is a challenge for me.

I set myself to just live this new life and to abandon, for now, the drive to achieve goals.  I began planning more about our travels, “We will go here and spend four nights, then two nights there and we have a week to play with before we need to be in Texas by the meteor shower. Where do we want to be for Christmas?”  Again, the message came to me – slow down, Kate.  Just be.  I am little thick-headed sometimes.

The Holy Spirit sometimes has to throw a brick or two at my head.  So, the tongue jack broke and the propane leaked and the trailer brakes grabbed and the heater failed.  We would fix one thing and something else would happen.  Neil, the mobile mechanic, couldn’t come right out.  When he did, he informed us the furnace needed a part that we could not obtain quickly.  Thanksgiving slowed things down even more.  We had to just sit and wait for what we needed to be shipped.  I had to stop taking my NSAIDs because my legs swelled up, so I had to sit and elevate my legs at intervals throughout the day and was left with rebound knee and back pain significant enough to curtail my walking.  I had to practice just being instead of doing.  I had to do it long enough to realize it was what I was doing, and moreover, what I really needed to be doing!

It had been my intention to update the blog a couple of times a week.  I think letting it go for the past couple of weeks has been part of my exercise in learning to “just be.”  I do have lots to tell you though, dear friends. so watch for at least one more post in the coming week!

Blessings!