"Oh sure, I'll interrupt my regularly scheduled life and do what it takes to pick up and move my family to an island in the Pacific. Why not?" - me, sarcastically, right now.
This is the second time in our Army career (my husband's career that I support as his wife) that we have had an unexpected assignment to a dream location on an island in the Pacific. Our first assignment was to Schofield Barracks, HI in 2006. We enjoyed 3 years there. It was beautiful!
So our next assignment will be to Okinawa, Japan. The people we know who have been there are assuring us that once we get there, we will have the most amazing time due to the beauty of our surroundings, the food, and the adventures of exploring the island and the culture.
But there are hard things. I know that we will be separated from our oldest child who will stay in the US and attend college. She does this with our blessing, because it is something she is ready for, and we are happy with the plans she is pursuing. We have great friends and family who will be close to her to support her in our place. I know we'll be distant from our parents and siblings and their families, so we won't see them very often for the next three years. We like our family, so it will be hard, but we'll do our best to keep in touch through video calls and e-mail. There are many decisions to make, such as whether to sell or store our two vehicles, my piano and all the little items that we own. We have been doing a lot of mental sorting between what we will ship to Okinawa, what we will store, what we will sell, and what we will give away or discard. There are a lot of things ahead of us to prepare to go, including medical appointments and lots of learning and a bunch of planning and paperwork. And I have to do all of this extra stuff all the while managing our homeschool semester, including our three oldests' participation in volleyball for the next 8 weeks, and two of our children's drama rehearsals and performances, and our oldest's graduation and celebrations for that.
I see an analogy to my spiritual life here. God promises that our eternity with Him will be amazing, with no more mourning, crying or pain, and we will enjoy His presence and a celebration, and we will worship Him in all his glory, see Him face-to face, and enjoy the New Earth which He will create. With this hope, we press forward in this hard life among difficult work and painful experiences. With this hope, we also press into Him and nurture our relationship with Him, because He walks with us through our life, good and bad, and He provides us with joy in the journey, even when our circumstances are hard and painful. But all of the Kingdom work we do will be worth it.
I have already accomplished a lot in our preparation for the move. We've sold and donated and discarded a number of things we knew we won't need. I have found three good suitcases for pennies on the dollar at local thrift stores. We've had appointments with our PCM doctor to update our vaccinations and medical records.
I struggled pretty badly a couple days ago, overwhelmed by all that needs to be done. But today, I'm back to being motivated to complete as many projects as I can this week. Whatever I can get done now will lessen what needs to be done later. I am confident that it will be worth it.
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