In the great words of Dr. Seuss, spoken to the character Marvin K. Mooney:
"The time has come. The time is now."
Last week, my time had finally come. With passport in hand, I got on a plane heading down to the island of Hispaniola. I flew in to Cap Haitien, a city on the northern coast of Haiti, ready for the next chapter of my life to begin.
That very same week a year ago, my family and I had packed up and moved back to the U.S. from our home in Cazale, Haiti. It was hard. One of the most painful events of my life. I was not ready to leave, did not want to leave. But God said it was time to return to our ol' Kentucky home, so we did.
During that bumpy drive to the airport from our house in Cazale, my heart felt like it was ripping in half. There were lots of tears. Sobs, even.
Our pastor later gave us the best advice we could have received.
"Grieve."
We had suffered a loss in that life-change, and grieving was what we legitimately needed to do. And so, we did indeed grieve. As most people know, grieving is not a quick and easy process.
We went through all the stages of grief.
The isolation, the anger, the bargaining, the depression...
....and finally the acceptance.
The process took a solid year.
We struggled with forgiveness and harboring resentment towards people that had hurt us. Two steps forward, one step back...that seemed to be our emotional pace for many months.
We received wise counsel from precious people that God specifically placed in our lives that helped us work through the junk. We were loved on and encouraged. Our brokenness was validated. We were not alone in our hurt. We joined hands with others who understood, who were also walking down this particular path.
Meanwhile over the course of the past year, we have dealt with some difficult stuff. Stuff that God knew in His infinite wisdom that we needed to be at home to deal with. I had some health issues that had to be worked through. Both of our kids had some school issues (college and middle school). Both of them also needed us to invest emotionally into them more intentionally. And there were handfuls of other important things that we needed to tend to...things we just needed to be here for. Things that my husband and I would be in the midst of and pause to look at each other, saying, "It is good that we are present for this. Right here. Right now. God knew."
We worked on our family. On our marriage. On our spiritual health. We even worked on long-neglected home improvement/repair projects. And Brennon, well...he just simply worked. He immediately returned to his job and resumed bringing home a paycheck, which is a super good thing.
Fast forward to October 2014.
A new chapter begins.
God has allowed new seeds to be planted in our lives, and we are watching them grow into something beautiful.
He has shown us the work He has planned for us....which we have been pleading to see and understand for a long time.
He has guided us to new people and places and shown us where we can confidently let our roots establish.
He has revealed to us that for now, we can firmly stand with one foot in our hometown of Paducah and the other foot in Haiti. He will balance us and use us in both places.
We now have direction.
We now have work to do.
And. We. Are. Stoked.
Exciting stuff lies ahead. I want to tell you all about it.
And very, very soon, I will!
