She Came To Sit With Us

I am back, but again, can’t get pictures into a post!  I am sorry and as I get our tech department (Jon) to look at it, we will have to move forward with pictureless posts. Please hang in there with me. I have beautiful ones!

I’d be remiss to not take a second to acknowledge this guy, without whom his three girls would all fall apart. 

It’s his birthday (or it was when I wrote it…last week) and I admire him so much. So glad God gave me you, Jonny!

 

Interestingly, we have had a few days and hosted guests since this and we are in a very different spot now then when I wrote it and I can’t say I am sad about it! Two couples from our home church were our first set of guest and we traded them for another set, two instructors from an organization based in Australia called “Beyond Subsistence”. They are currently doing a training for 35 local farmers called “Master Tree Growers” but this will get its own post. People here are hungry for knowledge and since the week-long training is by invitation only, we do have some disappointed friends who could not attend. For the attendees, we are so blessed and encouraged by the thirst to learn. 

Okay, whew, onto the original post:

Thanks for all your encouragement. Our giddy kind of died down and we had two very bummed kids on about Saturday.

We’ve been trying to give plenty of room to grieve. Do you know that grief is that antidote to depression? (At least that is what they told us at MTI). I read a blog post by a friend, Rebecca, that talked of “Grief” with a capital “G” and as a female. She wrote how Grief comes to sit with her and in times of transition, she is a welcome friend. It’s a process but I am beginning to invite her in with open arms. Not to wallow but instead of stuffing, using cliches, or minimize real emotion, we sit with her awhile and experience her cleansing, sometimes through hot tears and other times through times of pouring out prayers.

She has moved on since then in all the busy but I know she will come again and it will surprise us.  When I recognize her with my girls, Jon or myself, we are efforting an openness to do the hard work of Grief.

I know we will have times of sorrow and I do ask God that they would be short. :)

A friend, Peggy, sent an article to me that was very insightful. When we are uprooted and make serious efforts at rerooting, “Everywhere is home and nowhere is home.” While we are so thankful for our many places God has put in our hearts, we also yearn for Heaven, a place of unending worship and uninterrupted communion with God, but also as a place of no goodbyes and no need for our earthly friend, Grief. 

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