A wonderful, exhausting, profoundly sad and beautiful couple of weeks - a last post for the "far from home" blog
/This will be the last post for the "Far From Home" blog link on our website. A new one will be created and I'll post to it and give the link as soon as we are in better internet service area. Our TLF struggles to provide fast enough internet for this website and most others - pictures for this post (and there are many!) will also come once we have better internet speeds.
Friday - August 19 - Josh got home a week ago today and I haven't posted once since he's been back.
Life just simply feels too fast and too much right now to keep up with even simple things. Today I'm wondering if there's anything that will not cause me to break down in tears. We are in Minot on the base and I've been weepy all day - about everything.
We took a stroll around the neighborhood to find the house they've offered us and finding it brought up at whole slew of emotions I was hoping it wouldn't. The fact that there's no trees and very little natural light in the house makes my heart hurt - they are trivial things to many, but not to me (but they should be trivial to me). I desperately want a tree for my boys to climb (there's none within seeing distance of the windows, either), and there are so many houses here with trees, but none that are available. I feel so badly that I even have to check my attitude about it - it's a house and it will be beautiful because it's the house the Lord has provided and it's a house - I have nothing to complain about, but it still hurts my heart. I asked the housing office today about other options, but there's little chance of anything coming open by the time we need to move into this one on the 29th. PCS season is over and if we pass this house up we will commit ourselves to living off base - with a minimum of a 20 minute commute each way for Josh in good weather. Living on base is very important to us here. I just long to have a tree for my boys. And a bright house for the long, dark winter here.
But the Lord knows what I need and he always provides beautifully.
Tuesday morning, August 23rd - Josh interrupted my writing last Friday evening. I'd been weepy all day about pretty much everything. I was working on dishes, weeping, and he wrapped his arms around me tight and said, "Oh sweet precious girl. Sweet sweet girl. It's ok to grieve." - the reality of it all just hit like a freight train. After I calmed down a bit he seemed to just disappear. A few minutes later he came back in out of breath, with coffee ice cream (something I'd told him days ago that I was craving) and that wonderfully familiar little red and white plastic square from the red box machine down the street. We sat as close together as possible on the couch and drank our tea, ate our ice cream and watched, "Eddie the Eagle". A luxury for certain - something we haven't been able to do for months - I'd voiced the night before, when we first arrived in Minot, that I was so excited to just sit and watch a movie with him. Not because that's our favorite thing to do, but it's familiar and feels normal. So that's what we did and it was a beautiful thing, indeed.
Now it's Tuesday morning. We kept busy this weekend organizing our TLF, grocery shopping, enjoying the last couple days of the outdoor pool here on base being open, and just being a family again.
Without traveling.
And in our own space.
I'll talk to housing today and throughout the week to see if other house options have popped up, but I'm confident that the Lord will have us in the house he intends for us to be in - regardless of the floor plan. And I keep reminding myself that it's for a short season - we don't expect that we'll be here much more than a year, if even that.
Though I've learned to not expect things like that - the Lord has a knack for changing things up on us. He is a beautiful Father, full of grace and mercy for every season he walks us through.
I was talking with my precious friend, Monica, on face time over the weekend - I was weeping with her, that our lives couldn't be more intersected face to face - how I miss her. So so intensely. I was telling her and sweet, sweet India that I think that vertigo and illness has been a beautifully painful part of the Lord's grace in this season. I've asked for mercy, and he's gently reminded me that this is His mercy, albeit, different from how my human brain would understand it. It's been my rest - though exhausting, it's a relief from the constant care of my boys. I was intentional about taking breaks from the rigorous task of raising those sweet boys - found care for them so I could get out and clear my head, but the attacks gave me sleep - rest for my bones, not just my mind. All I could do during them was lean into Christ, because they make me so utterly vulnerable and weak - he sustains me through them and brings me out on the other side, slowed down and once again reminded that he is my gracious provider -
He is a gentle and gracious God.
All that aside, the week leading up to getting here was wonderful, exhausting and exciting. I was able to commune with a friend from Incirlik, who'd in the meantime had her precious baby boy. She was the first Incirlik friend I was able to see. It was so refreshing to talk with someone that knew all the strange ins and outs of not being able to return to Turkey, to our husbands, to the homes we'd just established. She understand the pain in displacement and we could talk about it face to face - laugh and grimace together about it all. And her sweet, sweet boy. She told me she was pregnant when he was just a wee 5 week bud. We delighted together in the anticipation of him and our group waited anxiously to meet him. She left to storknest in Germany the evacuation started - leaving her home and husband and beautiful prepared nursery behind. It was a true delight to see her! I love you, sweet Jessica!
Friday I woke up after a restless night sleep and prepared to see my husband - thankfully he was arriving on an early flight so we didn't have to count the hours of the day away. I was all jittery and nervous to see this delightful man I've been married to for 11 years. It felt like my wedding day all over again - my mother-in-law giggled with me about the anticipation of his arrival.
How I love him!
We waited in the terminal at the airport and the moment we saw him was a beautiful one indeed!
We visited the zoo the next morning and spent the rest of the weekend prepping to make our way to Minot.
Tuesday morning we loaded and trucked our way up to Roseville, MN, where my 97 year old grandmother, whom is precious and so dear to my heart, spends much of her time laying in bed praying the days away and waiting for the Lord to take her home. She anticipates it greatly, but reassured me she, "in a sense" doesn't feel ready because she's not ready to leave her beloved family members here on earth. My grandpa passed away after several painful months of mind deterioration about 5 1/2 years ago and she longs to see him again, and dance with him in glory. They were what our family calls, "giants of the faith". Loving Jesus with every might of their being.
Our time with her was healing, and wonderful. Many tears were shed, and much laughter was had. She is in pain, but never complains. She has so so much to complain about, but never speaks a word of it. What a delightful woman she continues to be!
Thursday morning we left early to make the final leg of out trip to Minot. There were so many days in the past 5 months that I felt this day would never come. Through the exhaustion, sadness and sickness I strove to press on, only in His sustaining grace was that possible. We are still so thankful that the Lord provided a way for Josh to leave Turkey so early. Initially it was looking like a 16 month separation. Then he was told December would be his out date, and then Minot needed him immediately, so a replacement was found, much more quickly that anticipated - the Lord paved the way!
So here we are - way up North at a base the is the butt of Air Force assignment jokes. We know the winter will be long, but we will take that over being 7000 miles apart!
We continue to wait to get in to a house and this week will be spent prepping for that. We will wait at least 2 months for our house hold goods to arrive, as they were shipped just days before Josh left - it could be up to 4 months, or longer even. We'll find furniture this week to supplement until it arrives and being in a home together again will be delightful indeed.
To God be the Glory - we are so thankful to be here and to finish out the "Far From Home" season.
Here are the pictures that I wasn't able to upload while in the TLF and have not taken the time to upload until now - there are many of them , and the speak for themselves. :) They are backwards in order from newest to oldest, but that's no matter.
