In less than one week we'll be dropping off our rental car, checking in, and boarding a flight to a whole other slice of the world. We'll get to live there for more days than I've yet to calculate.
Transplanting completely forces my brain into a different reality. I can so easily get stressed over the details, and then something weird in my brain happens and I get some perspective. It's perhaps the first time I've consistently had a good dose of it and it's totally grace.
If the salvation army doesn't get our couch on time? It's just a couch.
If we don't eat through these groceries I was so sure we would? There's others that will eat them.
If I forget something to pack? I'll make do, or find a replacement.
If Eowyn screams the entire flight and every body hates us? We'll probably never see them again.
When our marriage struggles through this change and it's all just so hard? We've had hard seasons-we're better for it.
Of all the things that take my time and brain space, there are very few that really matter. These relationships are really the only things that do and nearly all the rest work themselves out in the end.
Different people have had different responses towards us regarding our trip. Some panic the minute we tell them we're moving; Complete strangers making sure to fill us in on all the things we're missing here. "You'll have to buy groceries like every day? God, I'd hate that." "You realize you'll have like, no sun in the winter?" "I bet your parents are pretty upset that you're taking their grandbaby away from them." "Do you know ANYBODY there?"
It's like being pregnant again-unsolicited advice about all the things you've already read plenty on and already cried over. Wanting to have more information than others, to pull out the mighty "We'll be just fine cuz we're prepared" card yet realizing, even so, you have no idea what you're getting into.
We know this is going to be hard, but we have no idea how hard.
Well at least I am.
The scariest stuff is always the stuff worth doing. Fear is a terrible reason to not. "Fear isn't a good motivator"
I remember the 13 year old girl who wrote in her journal with her green gel pens a very serious prayer of living overseas. Drawing the world, and hearts all over, I would pray it to be so but would make sure I stressed how I didn't want to go by myself. I wanted to have someone to share it with. Here I am with two to share it with and I keep thinking how Jesus knew even back then.
It's that very truth that encourages me. He listened, already knowing the excitement and heartbreak the the following days would hold for His girl. He knows still.
In 6 days, all our belongings halved, then minus 6-7 bags will be sitting in a storage shed. The loves of my whole life and I will board a seat in the sky and fly off to a place with small refrigerators and older buildings than our country has been alive for.
We'll have to face the reality of leaving friends who have seen our hearts bleed, laughed at stupid (accidentally inappropriate) youtube videos (It's funny how you forget that horrible part of a video just in time to show it to your entire small group. Face Palm.) let us eat that last piece of chocolate and played that new board game with us (whether they wanted to or not) ... It hurts to leave.
I want to be replaced in so many ways, yet obviously not. I want to be the one to experience my people. I want to be the one to meet those babies in the hospital. I want to be the one to take pictures at the birthday parties and to scold my kid for pushing over their kid. I want to pour over dating profiles with my single girl friends in flesh and in laughter and then talk about the hard stuff that comes with figuring out what they heck they're doing in the whole dating scene. I want to talk about details. I want to be a few minutes drive, the a late night call. Not the 'skype in a few days, have to wait till morning to text.' I feel jealous of moments that haven't even happened yet, because someone else will (Lord willing) take our place and celebrate these people we love so deep even more fully. I want that-pray for that-and it hurts.
We are excited. Overwhelmingly so. We're a little (a lot) scared/sad/struggling too. It's the unknown, you know? But we know a guy who knows the 'unknown.' He knows what its like to give it all up. Saying goodbye feels like giving it all up.
Seeing our friends and family this weekend is so special. It's a fresh surge of love reminding us how good God is. I prayed for these people. I asked God for specific types of friends and one by one He delivered. This community has shown me what it feels like when Jesus moves towards us and makes us his own. He's behind all of it, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
I'm holdin on to that.
"You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you." Isa 26:3
As always, thanks for reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment