It’s foggy here this morning.  One of the weather forecasters actually called it “pea soup thick.”  In our neighborhood, it’s not quite so bad.  I can see the houses across the street easily, but if I look down our street they become less distinct, as if someone has taken a giant eraser and blurred the edges away.

Last night I had a strange dream.  I was back in college although it didn’t look like either of the colleges I attended for undergraduate or graduate school.  In each scene of the dream I made some sort of stupid mistake.  I went to the laundromat, put all my clothes in the washer but didn’t have any quarters to start the machine.  Leaving my clothes in the washer, I went back to the dorm to get money but wandered into the wrong dorm.  Prince, the rock star, was there, giving me clothing advice.  That’s the stupendously weird part of the dream.

Somehow, I ended up back at the laundromat with money, but instead of using it to clean my clothes, I loaded quarters into a vending machine and bought junk food.  At the end of the dream I had junk food and dirty clothes.  Fortunately, the clock radio alarm woke me up and I left the land of dirty clothes and rock stars.

I have been thinking a lot about faith.  It’s very easy to talk about faith when you don’t have to live in it.  This past week, I’ve been again thrown into the world of actually living by faith.  I suppose at some point, I’ll look back on this time and be thankful for it.  That’s what the wise council of “they” always says.  I don’t think that council often has to live their lives by faith either.

Is it faith to make contingency plans when the future is a little indistinct?  For example, I’m looking into what I need to do to get my speech language pathology certification up to speed in case I need to go back to work.  It seems stupid not to.  Faith, I don’t think, means leaving your brain at the door.  But the whole situation Jim and I find ourselves in now is a little scary and it’s easy to second guess myself, and even God.  Am I not trusting God if I prepare to go back to work?  However, could it also be that God prepared me for such a time as this way back when I became a certified speech language pathologist.  But maybe he didn’t.  How can we know which pebbles in the path are laid down for us to tread on?  Are we supposed to?   

I like fog when I know what’s on the other side.  The blurry lines add a bit of mystery to every day life, spicing it up a bit.  But if you were to put me in a middle of a foggy field with no compass, I wouldn’t like the fog very much at all.  And that’s the way it is for me this Wednesday morning.  I’m trying to keep my chin up…but it ain’t always easy.