Leaving Family

God's call and His will are something that we know to be perfect and irreproachable. However, His plan being perfect does not mean that it is free of suffering, pain, tears and sorrow. Perfection from God comes through the fires of trial and if Jesus as Man was not exempt from these things, and if we are to follow in His footsteps, then we should be preparing for such things and not shrinking away from them.

God's plan for me in Africa is perfect. However, God's plan for me requires me to leave my family behind. Not in the sense that I stop all communication or cease to love them, but rather that I won't have many opportunities to show them that in a physically present way. I am not going to be the with them less and less as I get older and deeper into God's will, and I am going to miss them.

Since before I was called to Africa, I can see where God's hand has been in easing me and my family into this distance. I worked at Village Creek Bible Camp for a while and was a camper there too. I was never really homesick, ever. I really love camp, and because I wanted to be there so badly, and loved where I was at so much, I simply did not miss spending the summer with my family. When I graduated and went off to college, I still did not get homesick. God, I believe, built a resilience within me to some extent.

During the Thanksgiving break of 2008 I had a reality check. My mom's side of the family gets together at every Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas. The Easter and Christmas of 2008 I had missed or would be missing, along with Easter of 2009, and I already knew this going into our family Thanksgiving. My cousin, Cody was born a few months before me, and we grew up, in the early years, more like siblings and good friends. As Cody was about to leave the night of our Thanksgiving reunion, he looked me in the eye and asked me when I was going to see him again. He caught me completely off guard because I honestly didn't think that he cared anymore. I was wrong. It dawned on me that it would be about a year, next Thanksgiving, when I would see him again. When I told him, he nodded his head, said okay and pulled me in to a hug.... At that moment, it took everything that I had within me to not cry. As I waved goodbye from the window, I cried.

God was choosing to reveal this reality of His plan then. The security that I experience with my family now, and being at home, where I was raised, and having all those comforts; those things are going to fade into memories as time progresses. It hit me then.

Oddly, this was the very same Thanksgiving break that God made it obviously clear to me that I was supposed to relent to the valiant pursuits of this man of God that God himself had put into my life for a specific reason. For two plus years I was being pursued by a godly man and had done everything, including outrightly rejecting him to encourage him to stop his pursuit. He never stopped, acting in faith on God's will, and God came through. I know that I am going to have a family in Africa, but its a bit newer. I am going to have brothers with me in Africa, and eventually sisters, but they are being brought together by God right now, and God has been bringing us all together for a long time coming, and we probably have done a very poor job of realising what has been going on.

In recognising and accepting all of these things, the fact that I won't have my Mom, Dad, Dakota, Kolby, Grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles close anymore is daunting. This family is a good family and it is a good thing to desire, but it was for a season and a time in my life that is drawing to a close. A new season, with a new family cometh. And it is hard. It is hard to accept, it is hard to believe. God wants what will be best for me, and what will glorify Him.

I do not know what would be best for me, but I know the One who has such knowledge. So I am going to follow His and where He leads me I will go, and where He stops me I will stay. It would be wrong of me to hold on tightly to a good thing that God is calling me to open my hand and let go.