Am I There, Yet?

Three weeks ago, Josh and some friends loaded up the U-Haul truck and in the last minute frenzy, my Bible was packed into a box.  It’s still there…in a box…on a truck…for the past three weeks.  I’ve been lost without it.  I was reminded of the people in oppressed countries who aren’t allowed to have a Bible and I wonder how they do it.  I know sometimes they’re able to sneak in a page or two at a time…and that’s all they get.  How stinky would it be to get one page a month and be stuck with a page out of the middle of Deuteronomy?   Ugh…I’ve got nothing to complain about.

For the first week without my Bible, I borrowed a Bible from the church.  It’s just not the same.  The second week, I got here and stole Josh’s Bible.  He’s got two with him, so he didn’t mind.  It’s still not the same.  So, here’s my confessional…I haven’t been reading it as often as I should.  I pick it up, and then get frustrated because it’s so different, and I put it back down.  Lame excuse…I know. 

So, yesterday the words “set an example” popped into my brain and kept repeating themselves like some kind of mantra.  I finally logged on to Bible Gateway and did a word search of those words.  I don’t know why I didn’t figure out where they came from, because they come from a verse that is so familiar.  But, sometimes I can hear something all my life and not be moved by it until circumstances change.

The words come from 1st Timothy 4:12-16.  Paul tells a young pastor, “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.  Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching.  Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through a prophetic message when the body of elders laid their hands on you.  Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress.  Watch your life and doctrine closely.  Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.” 

We knew it would be difficult to come here and we experienced some of the cultural differences before even showing up with the moving truck.  By cultural differences, I’m talking about church culture.  Good, bad or indifferent…the mind-set and structure here are vastly different.  Josh has spent the past couple of weeks trying to find his footing in a new place.  As excited as we are to be here, it’s always difficult (and confusing at times) to be the new kid on the block.  We’re trying to figure out what our role is here so that we can roll up our sleeves and dig in. 

As I’m spending time asking God the question of “What are we doing here?” I get the answer, “Set an example.”  I guess I don’t need to know much more than this right now. 

Oprah has them…so I thought I’d make my own list.  Here’s what I’d buy for all my friends for Christmas…that is…if I were independently wealthy.  Of course, I can’t afford all of this materialistic junk…but it is fun to pretend.  So, friends, here are your pretend Christmas gifts from me:

 Chasing Daylight by Erwin McManus is my favorite book of the year.  I’ve enjoyed reading it and want to share it with everybody I know…I hope you enjoy it!  

  Here’s a 1 year subscription to Today’s Christian Woman…my favorite magazine.   Passion Worship Band came out with a new CD this year.  It’s my favorite worship CD and wanted to share.   Some of my friends don’t appreciate country music, so I’m throwing in a couple of new CDs to introduce them to some great music.    

 Since my friends are all exercise nuts, I thought I’d throw in some new Skechers and velour track suits.    I have very frugal friends and I can’t imagine any of them buying cashmere for themselves, so I thought I’d pick up a cashmere sweater for each of them.   My friends would be disapointed if I didn’t knit them a scarf and sweater.  I didn’t knit the ones pictured above, but I could knit something similar.   This blanket is amazing.  It’s super soft and has lavendender inside.  You stick it in the microwave to warm it up and it smells and feels wonderful.   Every girl needs comfy slippers…   …and yummy smelling candles…   …and Choxie.  

 I thought I’d throw in some Bliss “spaahh”-kling body butter.  (It’s champagne-scented…and sparkly!  It doesn’t get any more girly than that!)  

 A friend of mine sells Avon and she showed me this lip kit by Mark.  It’s so cute and fits right in your purse.  O.K.  These next three gifts are more about me…I hope you don’t mind…   Here’s a gift card for The Spa at The Hotel Hershey.  See…the thing is that you have to fly out here and visit me in order to use this gift card.     Since you’ll be travelling, you’ll need a good travel bag… …and a Sony Handycam to document the best girlfriend getaway ever! Of course, I’ll never have the money to send all of that to you…so, I’ll purchase something out of the WorldVision gift catalog instead.  Actually, I’d recommend everybody checking the catalog out…it’s amazing how little some people have and how a small gift will make a huge difference in the life those less fortunate than we are.  Check it out!

I couldn’t say “Happy Thanksgiving” because that was yesterday.  I’ve heard people refer to today as “Black Friday” but, that just doesn’t describe the mood I’m in. 

I’m not planning on shopping today.  Some friends of mine dared me to go to the city today…but, I didn’t want to spend $18 on the round-trip train ticket to go in by myself.  I’d go if I had a girlfriend here to go with me, but I don’t know anybody well enough to call up and say, “Wanna go to the city with me today to do some shopping?”  Of course, I probably wouldn’t do much shopping there…I’d mainly go to people watch. 

I do want to go there this Christmas season.  I want to see the tree at Rockefeller Center.  I want to see the Santa Claus at Macy’s.  I want to walk down 5^th Avenue and browse the stores.  I want to take a horse-drawn carriage ride in Central Park while drinking an eggnog latte.  But, I don’t want to do that by myself.

Thanksgiving was fun.  We had three invitations for Thanksgiving dinner.  That really felt great, because I didn’t want a microwave turkey dinner in a hotel room.  People here have been so welcoming.  It was a lot of fun to have a northeastern Thanksgiving with a lot of people around.  The kids made some new friends and can’t wait to see them again.

We have much to be thankful for.

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So, here the interactive part.  Did you go shopping today?  If so, what are the great deals that you found?  Fill  my comment box, please…I’m desperate for conversation. 

We’re together again, as a family.  My daughter and I arrived on Friday, meeting Josh and our son after they took a 2800 mile road trip with a U-Haul truck.  I’m having some computer issues, so sorry I haven’t been updating this.

It feels like we’re home.  We’re living in a hotel far away from our family and friends, but it still feels like home.  We’ve felt so displaced in Oregon for the past couple of years, that it feels great to be in a new environment…a place we know God has led us to.  We think we found a place to live, but it’s not available until December 1st.  So, we’ll be hanging out in a hotel for the next couple of weeks.  But, it could be worse.  I’ve heard stories of people living in hotels for 3 months or more.  We just watched a special about some people who lost their homes in Hurricane Katrina and they’re still living in FEMA campers…waiting for insurance money to come in.  That really put things into perspective for me.  We really have it good.

I am looking forward to getting settled.  I’ve tried to make our hotel room as cozy and organized as possible, but there’s only so much you can do.  We do have a suite with a refrigerator, sink, microwave and stove top.  We even have a toaster and coffee maker.  Woohoo!  :)  At least we won’t have to have Thanksgiving dinner here.  We’ve received two invitations for Thanksgiving.  We might try to hit both.  :) 

It was fun to go to church this weekend.  We saw a lot of familiar and welcoming faces.  Everybody’s been so great to us.  We’ve even met some new people in our community that have opened their arms to us.  Even the lady who opened our bank account went over the top to welcome us.  She’s getting some Indian recipes for me and offered to take me shopping to find the ingredients.  I’ve heard that people in the northeast are rude…but, I’ve found them to be extremely warm and friendly.  Sure, we’ve run into a few rude people…but rude people are everywhere…and so are friendly people. 

I’m just done with stereotypes.

I’m starting to learn my way around.  Driving here tends to be a bit confusing, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out.  Nothing helps me find my way around like getting lost a few times.  It doesn’t help that we still have Oregon license plates on the car.

Just wanted to say, “Hi!”  We made it and are looking forward into settling into our new life.  Gotta sign off before the computer battery kicks off.

Just a quick update.  I’m still here…camping out in an empty house with my daughter.  I don’t have a computer.  I don’t have a washer and dryer.  I borrowed a radio from my parents and I do have a coffee maker.  What more could I possibly want?  I’m sleeping on an air mattress.  I’m at my mom and dad’s house right now borrowing their computer and using their washer and dryer. 

Josh is driving across the U.S. in a U-Haul truck.  A friend of his drove with him to Omaha and then he picked up his brother in Des Moines and they’re driving the rest of the way.  He’s in Ohio right now…almost at the Pennsylvania border.  I think they’re going to try to make it to New Jersey tonight.  Did I mention that he has our 4-year old with him?  Yes…he is crazy…but, I love him for it.  What husband drives his 4-year-old son across the United States?  Mine.

As, I mentioned, I’m still here.  My daughter didn’t want to miss school for a week and so we stayed here and will fly out to meet the boys this weekend.  After Thanksgiving she’ll start her new school.

I’m reading a book called, After The Boxes Are Unpacked, Moving On After Moving In, by Susan Miller.  It’s a self-help book for people relocating.  I really think I can handle moving…after all…I’ve already moved 19 times.  But, moving across the country is different than moving across town.  And, the older I get, the harder it is to move.  It was a breeze when I was a kid.    I remember moving here from the valley.  It was harder than I thought it would be, but I found comfort in hanging around familiar places.  I could go grocery shopping in the same grocery stores I shopped in before.  But, there is no Fred Meyer in New Jersey.  There is, however, Starbucks.  How comforting is that?  I can still have an eggnog latte way over there.

O.K.  Back to the book.  I was reading a section where the author told a story about a conversation she had with a woman at a newcomer’s class.  One woman said, “I expected moving to be an adventure, to be lonely and hard, to add hassle and stress to my life, yet to be culturally enriching, to draw us closer as a family, to be a challenge to our marriage, to stretch me spiritually.  I was looking forward to the relief of not working and to just being a mom.  I knew it would be painful to have my kids grow up far away from my parents.  At the same time, I thought it would be exciting to be surrounded by all this history.  Moving was all of that.  By the time all the preparations are done, I’m ready to leave.  I get tired of saying goodbye.  I reach a point where I just want to get it over with.  I get nervous, scared, and excited.  Then it’s such a weird feeling to get off a place in a new city and think, I just moved here.  This is my new home.  I live here now.  It seems like it should take longer and be more difficult than a plane ride.  At first it’s so exciting!  I love to buy new things for the house, try out new restaurants, check out the malls, and discover all the new places to go.  Then, when all that wears off, it stops being exciting and becomes frustrating.  It takes time to adjust and accept all the changes.”

I couldn’t have expressed it better than that.  That’s exactly how I’m feeling.  I’m nervous and excited.  I’m sad and happy.  I’m trying to enjoy my last few days here, but I’m also ready to move on.  The weather here has been crummy.  We got some snow the other night and I was afraid that I wouldn’t ever get to see the mountains again.  But, this morning, I opened my shades and there they were!  It’s a clear and sunny (yet, cold!) day.  I was so excited to see them.  They are friends that I’d be sad to not be able to say good-bye to.  There’s a special bond one gets with a mountain after one crashes down it on a pair of skis.  LOL!!!

Speaking of skiing, the mountain opens this weekend.  The great thing about this is that the tourists start to show up.  When tourists show up, they want to live here.  When people want to live here, they go house shopping.  Hopefully one of those house shoppers will stop by our house and recognize it as being the perfect vacation house. 

Back to the topic of moving…I’m so easily side-tracked!  Yesterday, my daughter and I went to Barnes and Noble and I picked up a book called, Around New York City With Kids.  I’m going to study it so that I don’t look like a tourist in the city…LOL!!!  An issue of Parent’s Magazine showed up yesterday and I opened it up to an article called Christmas in New York.  I want to fully immerse myself in the east coast culture.  We’ll be living in one of the most densely populated areas of the United States and I don’t want to let that overwhelm me.  I want to embrace it.  I know that life will get difficult after the dust settles and the honeymoon period comes to an end.  But, I want to embrace it instead of letting it get me down.  The Boxes book talks about the differences in cherishing what was and clinging to what you brought with you.  For example, Miller says to cherish distant family, friends and memories, but cling to God and each other.  She quotes a friend of hers who did manage a move across the U.S. (from Florida to California.)  She says, “I hesitated to connect at first because leaving friends is like having a favorite pet that gets run over–you just hate to replace it because you know perhaps the new one could get run over, too.  I noticed a pattern in my moving.  The places that were the most meaningful to me were the ones where I needed God the most.  They were also the ones where I prayed the most.  The more intimate I was with God, the more time I spent with Him, the more I grew.  I began to put my expectations not in a place, but in a Person.  Because my places have changed and will again, I must fasten my heart on something else, for where my treasure is, that’s where you’ll find my heart.  My heart must be stabilized in God, who is unchanging.”

I was telling my mom the other night that I believe it’s not beyond God to take us to another place where we have to solely rely on Him because we have nothing else.  We won’t have the perfect job or the perfect place to live.  We’re leaving behind everything familiar.  On one hand, I think, “Wouldn’t it be so great for us to have some amazing opportunities to change the world as a result of this current sacrifice?”  But, on the other hand, I know that God cares more about the condition of our heart than He does in what we can accomplish for Him.  And, it’s not beyond Him to let us flop around for awhile.  Because it’s during times that we have nothing that we have to fully rely on Him to sustain us.  We may not change the world, but more than anything, I never want to get to the place where I don’t need God.  I never want to get to the place where I refuse to grow anymore.  Do I hope that God grants us success in ministry?  Absolutely!  But, do I place my faith in that?  No…because that will only lead to disappointment and disillusionment in God.  I place my faith in God and whatever road He chooses for us…as scary as that is.  I’m a control freak and I want to be in control.  But, the number one lesson God has been instilling in my heart this past year is to give him full control.  I believe that it’s God’s will that we make this move.  However, if things don’t turn out the way we thought they should, I cannot misinterpret that as us hearing from God inaccurately.

So…yes, I’m scared, and excited, and apprehensive, and confident, and happy, and a bit angry.  I guess I’m just a wreck…but, that’s O.K. because it’s not my job to pick up the pieces…I’ll let God do that.