Choose the Light

Last Saturday Kevin and I were able to sneak away for a day date while my parents were in town.  It was absolutely splendid and we were able to reconnect and get 'back on the same page' again.  As we were sitting on a patio casually eating the best bread and butter ever, Kevin mentioned something that came up at work.

At a round table meeting, his colleagues were going around and rating their personal life and work life on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the best.  He settled on 10 for his personal life.  I'm not surprised as Kevin is a glass half full kind of guy, but it got us talking.  When he explained his number, he said that life is as wonderful as a person could expect.  It is not as if we do not have problems in progress, or that our family is perfectly healthy, or that our dog hasn't emptied himself on our basement floor lately; yet the crux is we are living the essence of the dream we set out to live before we were married.

Someday we will look back on this time and think life was so so good.  When (not ‘if’) something bad happens, we will long for this place, this moment in time.  It is like when Luke is getting sick all over everything and Kevin and I long, hope, and pray for him to be well.  We promise we will persistently appreciate Luke being fever free and healthy when he is playing in the sunshine (as we should).  That is life; one day it's going along and all is well and the next you're dealing with something hard that rocks the world you had known. You wish you could go back and be oblivious to that hard thing, but it's impossible. Life doesn't work that way.

On Sunday (the day after our date) our world was rocked a little.  Without getting into too many of the details my family wants to keep private, it was decided that my sister needed to move to California.  She, along with most of my family, have lived in Iowa their whole lives.  A few years back my brother moved out there and she decided it was time to make the move to better her life and the life of her sons.  

We all know this is good, but it's also hard.  Hard because we will miss her and her son.  Hard because one of her sons is staying behind.  Hard because there are so many loose ends to tie up at home.  Hard because we packed her up and got her moved in three days.  Hard because there are so many unknowns for her.

It was a curve ball we didn't see coming and we are all still processing it.  

All this hard stuff had me awake one night this week, way past my bedtime.  I started worrying about her son staying behind and how this transition will affect him for the rest of his life.  I started worrying about her figuring out how to live somewhere different and making a life for herself there.  I could go on and on and on about how my head was worrying.  But, something, or more appropriately, someone, in my heart whispered to me that night around 3 a.m.  

That voice said: 

"Don't worry about this. Do your best. Listen to me. I am here."

I have known God was in this since the beginning.  Things fell into place in a short amount of time and seemed to work out almost too easily.  And as doubt and fear crept in, God silenced it as I looked to Him.

It made me think of the verse some of you might know: 

Trust in the LORD with all your heart 

and lean not on your own understanding; 

in all your ways submit to him, 

and he will make your paths straight.  

Proverbs 3:5-6

This hard thing is just starting its story.  As I look ahead, I do see that the moment in time when Kevin rated his life a ten was really, truly good.  I also see that this time is good, just not in the same way.  Although there is a long road ahead, there is also hope and redemption through this decision and hopefully great change.  God will surely be glorified in this.  It won't be easy, but it will be good.  God makes beauty out of ashes.  #amiright

A bonus to this week was we were able to love on and spend some extra time with our nephews.  They are the sweetest boys and we are thankful we were able to spend so much time with them this week. 

Would Kevin still rate his personal life a 10?  Probably.  Like I said...glass half full.  He has been my rock in this and I could write a few hundred blog posts about what he means to me.  Another time.  

As I process this week, it has been tempting to let darkness prevail.  It’s like light has been only shining on one side of my face, darkness on the other.  I have been vulnerable to let the negative pieces of this week take over, let it seep into this situation and overtake it.  But I need to continually look into the light, right around the corner, beckoning to me.  Don’t allow the darkness to win, choose to focus on the good things in this change, choose the light.