“They are calling in an ambulance to take you and your son to the main hospital in Oslo.”
The sentence crashed in around my weary, beleaguered postpartum brain as I clutched my husband’s hand. I sat blinking in shock at the young tall pediatric doctor dressed in blue who had just spoken. Twelve hours ago I had delivered what we thought was a perfectly healthy 9 lb. baby boy.
In the thin places of morning, right before dawn, between dreams and waking He walks into the room. He brushes our skin and our hearts with His healing warmth. “This is my beloved, this is my friend.” His heartbeat pulsates through the skin of this world to make this reality known. He wants us to know what He feels and what He thinks, yet He also knows the magnitude of such intimacy is more we can hold because we are but man. So He graciously gives it to us in glances, in touches, in whispers and in laughter.
But it feels like no matter how carefully worded your write it or how thoughtfully and insightfully you approach a lot of topics these days you are going to be slammed from all perspectives and opposing views. And it’s not just the blaring opposite opinions and beliefs it’s all the dozens of other of nuanced and slightly variant views as well. I feel like most people agree with each other more than they think, but they get so stuck on 2% or 5% that separates them from others.
I spent two, maybe three hours, last week writing on a blog. It just didn’t turn out, which is why nothing was posted last week. So this is attempt number #2 and its Monday. I am not sure where the time goes. Its already September and I am 24 weeks into this pregnancy. Over half way there. Its basically still summer here in Norway, but the days are getting colder and rainier. No frost yet, so the flowers are still blooming and there is still a few apples on the trees and berries on the bushes. The kids boots are crusted with mud each day after school and dripping rain suits hang in our entry hall. We still sleep with our windows open at night, but all snuggled under our down Norwegian duvet comforters.
I am girl from small town USA. I’m used to simple and easy and right and wrong. I may have grown up, gained perspective in college, learned to ask questions when I became a parent and then widened my understanding even more with living overseas, but still at heart, life is simple and straightforward to me. You can’t take that black and white perspective away. It’s how I see God, how I see people, how I see culture and it shapes how I make choices in life. I’m so thankful for it, because the more I discover the world, the more I see gray. There are too many options, too many opinions, too many choices to choose from, too many things that can be wrongly understood and badly interpreted no matter your intent.
No matter how well you adjust a part of you will always feel foreign. As an American in Norway I will always feel a bit louder, a bit more direct, a bit more opinionated and a bit more emotional. At first I think I gave myself too much pressure to adapt and become “norwegian” but now I am learning the balance of being myself and keeping my own personality and cultural traits while at the same time embracing and honoring the culture I live in.
