bitter sweet

 

Today was the most bitter-sweet one yet.

We worked HARD today to get through all the cabinets and cupboard and closets and get them clean and downsized and sorted and given away, and man.

I baked MaryAnne's oatmeal bake in that red casserole dish 600 times in 13 years, for some of the most precious people. That can of pumpkin, I brought in last year for Matt's annual birthday pie. That box of tea, that is for Ms. Pam, just the kind she likes, every night after dinner, boiling hot. That bag of coconut, that is for when Dr. Lake comes, because coconut pie is his favorite. That cookie sheet I moved to Haiti with, it has shared a million cookies.

Before I knew it, I was knee deep in tupperware (that Seeds of Greatness sent us one year and made me feel rich as a queen) and pouring sweat and bawling in the casserole dishes. In the children's books, the ones I read to Lily when she was nine months old and we moved into this house. In the Christmas decorations, for all the sweet and simple Christmases we shared here with family galore.  Tears in the spice cabinet, remembering all Gail's powerful stories from China when she brought me that Chinese Five Spice, in the game closet remembering all the hilarious Heckman evenings,  cleaning the Instant Pot that Carol brought and always lovingly brought me supplies for. Tears as I took all the schoolbooks down from the shelf Don built me, in the little corner of the world where I taught Lily and Sofie to read, cleaning the closets of skirts and shirts worn again and again and again to teach hundreds of precious students. 

Reality is, so much of our lives in Haiti were not what I had planned. I learned to cook because the table was full and people were hungry. I learned to teach because Emmaus needed a teacher. I learned to homeschool because the kids needed the education. I learned to speak Creole because the stories and friendships are too rich to miss. 

I learned to love...to genuinely love these things that I once feared, because one day at a time the Lord showed up and stretched and helped me and loved FIRST. 

This precious family took a very long time, and cleaning out the closets of all the many memories and testimonies hit me a lot harder than I expected.

I could do no more of it by three, and we headed to the little house that's been a place of peace for me from the week we moved to this village. 

In Shayla, Jean-Sius, Florina and Naomi, we have always found friends who cared about us for who we were, and who are always just who THEY are.  As the kiddos chased kittens and ate cornflakes and Jean-Sius helped Ben gather cherries, we all caught up on life in their precious yard, and by name they asked about so many of you, so many people they know we care about, even if they've never met them.  

Such joy it brought me to set the kids lose and be with family...to walk home together and set right to dinner for all the people the Lord brought around our table tonight, the table that has focused so many hundreds of prayers and peals of laughter and stories and rich conversation. The table where SO MANY have become family. The table where Matt and I grew ours.

The Lord has been so good. So much deeper and wider than I ever could have dreamed. 

So much bigger than the cabinet collecting all my tears today. 

He has provided so much that I was sure He never could.  He has made family and faith where there was NONE.

He has grown and stretched me in ways I was sure I could not be taught. 

I guess He isn't finished.