In the fog

Thursday night it was very foggy outside.  The street lamps filtering through the thick cloudiness had everything  enveloped in a yellow haze, kind of a comfortable almost magical feeling.  Outside there was fog but inside it was nice and cozy and warm.  A perfect night for a hot cup  of tea and a good book.  On Friday morning, it was a different kind of fog I had to contend with, faced with loads of things to do, limited time and unlimited tiredness.  Motzei Shabbos, I discovered I had some issues on the child rearing front that required my urgent attention, out of the fog.  So that got me thinking.  So many times in life we are faced with  sort of foggy situations where it's not entirely clear where we are, where we are going and exactly what should be done.  Life has a tendency to get complex.  When children are born and we look at our sweet infant we cannot see exactly what he/she will be like as an adult, we cannot see all the steps we and they will have to traverse on the way.  Much like the farmer, we plant the seeds and nurture them to help them grow, but we can only take them that far, many things are simply out of our hands.  Yes, our children are part of us but at the same time they are their own people.  It can get, well foggy and unsettling and, gulp, scary?  But back to the good type of fog, the magical comforting type,  like the Clouds of Glory that accompanied the Jews out of Egypt.  I think that sometimes the fogginess in our life forces us to step back, realize we are not in the driver's seat, to let go and have a little faith, to not always have to be able to to have all the answers.   The One who led our ancestors back then is still the One who is enveloping us in His loving protection and guiding and carrying us to where we need to go, even when we can't see, out of our personal Egypts.