Preparing to Go

She is leaving in four weeks.  One month.  Our lives will be completely different from anything that we have ever experienced before in our life.

Our oldest daughter is leaving home for a year.  A whole year.

I spend some of my time wondering where the time has gone.  It seems like just yesterday we were walking the hallway with a crying baby wondering if the days of colic would ever come to an end.  That was just yesterday, right?

I wonder if I have completed the job that I was supposed to do with her.  Did I teach her everything she needs to know?  Is she ready for life?  Have I instilled in her the character that she needs to do what God has called her to do?  Should I have spent more time teaching her to cook better or bake better?  Will she know how to keep her apartment clean and tidy?  Should I have spent more time teaching home skills?

I wonder if she will do OK navigating a forgein culture and learning a forgien language.  I wonder if she will safe as she travels, make all her connections and get through customs and the border without incident.  I hope, beyond hope that she will be able to call me from across the ocean and tell me that she has arrived safetly.  I am sure that I will not sleep really well until I know she has made it to Germany.

Mostly, I wonder if her relationship with God is as strong as it needs to be to accomplish what God has given her to do.  Does she understand the Christ life like she should?  Is her faith strong enough to handle lonliness, depression and dissappointments?  (I know life and I know they all will come!)  I wonder if she has a correct ministry view of the task that God has given her.  Is she viewing it as a mission field to which He has called her?  Has God put within her heart a heartbeat and heartcry for the people to whom He is sending her to minister? 

My thoughts can go on and on.   Time continues to tick by and one month seems like it is right around the conrner.  The closer it gets the stronger the lump in my throat feels.  The longer one year seems; and Germany sounds like it is farther away than the moon!

Some things have become clear to me:

* Time goes by faster than I ever dreamed.
* You can't go back and do overs.
* You get to say "I'm sorry".
* You can't keep them with your forever.  God gave them to you to prepare and send out for His work.
* The same God that I meet with every morning is going with her to Germany.  (Somehow that makes it      
    seem a lot better!)
* God has more invested in her than I do.  
* Her life is His - not mine. 

So, I am spending everyday thinking about how soon we will miss her smiling face at our table in the morning; and I am spending as much time as I can being with her and building some really great memoires that we will hold onto when she is away.  We will be taking a current family picture and looking at the olds ones wondering how the time could have gone by so quickly. I will post our new one when we get it done.

 

 I am taking comfort in the fact that God is going with her.  I have poured into her as much as I could in 20 years.  What I have missed and failed in can not be redone in the few days we have remaining; but God can shore up my shortcoming and He can teach where I have failed. 

However, just because she is leaving us for a year does not mean that I can not invest in her any more.  I can pray for her every day.  I can intrust her to His capable hands to protect and guide and teach.  What a comfort that is to this hurting heart.  So thankful my God can be trusted with those for whom I hold so dear.

Thanks for stopping by - I am so glad you did.
Blessings,
~Martie