So, So, THANKFUL!!

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone! I decided that today would be a great day to get back to my blog (It helps a TON that we’re spending the holiday with my in-laws and they are so amazing to watch the kids and give me some much needed “think-time”...another blessing in my life!)

I cannot believe it has been four months since my last post…what a ride it’s been since then! In one of the posts before I went MIA I mentioned something about the kids and I joining The Spouse…well, it happened!

The church where he is working is providing us with an apartment. The church owns a large house that is broken into three apartments. They partner with Lutheran Social Services to provide housing to people in transition. The Spouses’ (amazing) supervisor saw our needs and made it happen that WE were given the three bedroom apartment. The spouse moved in mid-June and the rest of us joined him at the end of August. Why so long? Many reasons…first, we had made commitments to people and activities in our “hometown” and didn’t want to back out on those; I felt better finishing the summer with my Christian Education position (VBS, Day Camp, etc.) and with the various trips the Spouse takes during the summer with youth we would have been spending a lot of hot, sticky days in a city apartment with no air-conditioning! SO…we opted for a house near a lake that DOES have air-conditioning!

We did join him at the end of August. We count ourselves completely blessed that we are able to be with one another, that our children are able to take advantage of all the neat programs a large city has to offer, and that there is never a shortage of possibilities for fun things to do together. Moreover, we know that as far as “tough” situations go ours is pretty mellow. Compared to loved ones we watch, we are thankful that this is our “cross to bear”.

That being said, it IS our “tough” situation and we do struggle. Primarily, I think, because we are wounded. We are wounded coming off a tough work situation, wounded by a tough economy that has caused our home to linger on the market, by a change of environment that is quite a shock to this farm-girl’s system, not to mention to the hearts of my small-town children. Our souls ache for the connections we felt in our little town, for the familiar faces we’d see when we were out and about, for the dear friends who became our family. There are days when the kids and I nearly suffocate in the longing for our friends; for that feeling of HOME. So I use the term “wounded”…. ‘wounded’ and ‘wondering’. We wonder how God will work this all for good. Don’t mis-understand me. He WILL work it for good. Of that we are sure, but there are days where my tension in wondering HOW and my patience for wondering WHEN are at levels I can nearly see radiating off my body. When the kids say, “I miss Walker” it’s all I can do not to cry as I quietly say, “Me too”. God will. He has to. Not only do I need it for myself, I need it for my children. I cannot bear to think that they will have gone through all this for nothing. That they have left all they’ve known, given up months with their Daddy, put their loved items in storage, moved to a strange place, put themselves out there to make new friendships for nothing. No, that cannot be. He will and we are hopeful for the day when we’ll look back on all of this and think, ‘I SEE where God was taking us!’

Until then we work to adjust the best we can, holding onto the friendships with those we love and tentatively putting out our hand in our new community. What a blessing to simply be together in the journey! We have much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving day and we thank God for all He has done and rejoice in His love for us. May your Thanksgiving be filled with blessings as well!