And out comes the sun(glasses)!

This weekend was rather trying for us.  We know there is a reason for the trials we face, and at times we beg God to know what it/they is/are.  But it seems like part of His reason it to get us to trust Him more, without seeing the reason now.  We look back at what Piper calls bygone grace, and we see that, in 2003, when we left for our first term, we left much later than we wanted, and were spared many other hardships we would surely have found, had we followed our original plan.  But we can't see what's up ahead just now.
I went fishing On Saturday, and James and I each caught two fish. We came home, cleaned them up, and did a few other things around the house while everyone else was out.  Part of what I was doing was finishing prep for the two presentations I would make the following day.  Then the call came.  Kim was stranded 22 miles south on I-5 with a dead car (turns out it was only the transmission!), and the leisurely evening I had planned became a road trip, grabbing emergency drive-through on the way to pacify the natives (this was already the dinner hour when it happened). When we got home, we were told yet again how stressful our children are to our (very very gracious) hosts, and we stayed up late talking, realizing it was probably time to find other housing, rather than stress these people too much, and risk hurting our relationship with them.  So Sunday morning I babbled my way through a few stories, and we got home and all got a healthy 45 min nap before hitting the road again, this time an hour north.  More drive-through, and a hasty meal in a church courtyard.  This presentation went a lot more smoothly (though I messed up the instructions to the A/V people!), but it was hard to tell if anyone was touched.  We'll see.
All day Sunday, we're driving a 1982 Volvo we have been graciously loaned, with a car seat and two booster seats in the back, four-window AC, and sun visors that don't really block the sun.  But that's OK, since Kim got me these really cool sunglasses a couple months ago, that fit me well, and that I enjoy wearing.  Only I can't find them.  So I squint and groan, and ask God what His purpose in this is.
I had breakfast with a pastor last week, and we talked about this very question, that God doesn't always (ever?) show his purpose on our timeline, and sometimes God is just asking us to press on with what we know is right.  We don't see the dawn, but it does eventually come.  Plodding through this day, and the night that follows, another day does come.
So this morning, as we're rushing to get everyone out of the house for swimming lessons, Kim digs through the swim bag, and finds my sunglasses.  Apparently I left them there in the chaos of taking the boys on a swim picnic last Friday.  I don't know how to explain the joy I felt, though in putting them on (I didn't care that I was inside the house!)  It was like the dawn had finally come, and the sun was finally starting to shine.  I know it is such a silly thing to let such mundane things affect your outlook on life.  But it seems like our lives are so full of the mundane these days, that we've got to get it organized and put away, or it will kill us. 
So God puts my sunglasses away, and lets me struggle through a whole weekend of squinting, to show me that He is good even then, and that He does bring the sun out again.  Or, as the scriptures say, that His mercies are new every morning.  Even this morning.