homeless

**We don't have internet access at the house, so getting online has been near impossible...I'm sorry!


I wish I could say this is all going a lot better than I thought it would.

But it's really mostly hard.  And exhausting.  And we are very ready to be done now, and still aren't.

We've chopped the packing and sorting days up with a trip to the zoo and doctor's appointments and dinner with friends, Bex was incredible help with the girls and such a dear friend to catch up with, and my sister is here now with some of the cutest girls on earth, and that all helps.

But as I let go of so many things I wish I could hold onto, as I weary myself with the labor and emotion of so much sorting and sending and carrying, it was the receptionist at our doctor's office who helped the most.

Matt and I go to a dear doctor/friend's practice on the other side of town, where almost all of the patients are Somali or Nepalese refugees.  We had to update our paperwork before we were able to check-in, and after being asked if I was born in America, and if I was a registered citizen, she asked me this unexpected question:

M'am, are you homeless?

And it all snapped.

I just looked at her blankly, trying to think of what to say, and Matt jumped in literally laughing and assuring her that I am not.

Because I am not.   I may not have a home in America.  But I am not anywhere close to homeless.

Packing up my home and preparing to leave it for the last time, watching so much of my childhood walk out the door never to be seen again, taking down the pictures, promising the very beds my mom and her sister slept in, that my sister and I slept in, that Lily and Sofie are sleeping in right now on to another...she clarified this "hardship" of mine--in one question--as a first world problem...a problem that for the majority of the world would be a LUXURY to have.

Not having a home to call our own in America is NOT homeless.

There are many homeless people.  There are many orphaned, many widowed, many hungry, many suffering, many oppressed, many abused and mistreated and persecuted and enslaved.

And as hard as this is for me, losing my childhood home does not make me any of those things.  I am NOT even one of them.

As Christ-followers, we really DO have nothing to hold onto but Christ...and we're not supposed to! This is simply an opportunity to let go of that which might hinder me from stepping out on Him, and to find more freedom in Him.

Everyday, that receptionist serves the homeless, and my heart must be--instead of on my own situation--on theirs.  Everyday, many many are waking up homeless.  Seeking refuge.  In the middle of war and hunger and darkness and without Christ.  And others, not my missing memories, not my lack of certain comforts, must continue to be our focus...

We are able, by the help of many, to rent a home in the country where He has us pouring out our lives, and when we are in our home country there are a dozen places we could stay, and many of you offering, and I am so incredibly grateful.

Once we have internet access, I'll have pictures...thank you for your prayers, and for helping me look outside of myself to the lost and dying world He sent Jesus for...and now through US.