Drastic Shift in Perspective

The party’s over.  A sensational week with my granddaughter and all my children has come to a close.  All I’ve got to say (well, not exactly all I have to say, but with every attempt to keep this post brief) is that things sure look different waving bye-bye from this side of the security gate at the airport.

When we used to kiss my parents goodbye, taking precious grandchildren far away, I never fully understood the anguish I was causing.  Now I get it.  (I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again.)  Boy, do I get it.

Another thing I want to add is how much easier it is to trust God for protection and provision in my own life than in the life of my adult children.  Back when we were driving around the Guatemalan countryside in the midst of a civil war, was I concerned?  Not much.  We were all together, and God was there to protect and provide.

Now that my kids are the ones driving through Mexico on their way to serve as teachers at the MK school close to us, it looks a bit different.  Are you sure that’s a good idea to drive instead of fly just so you’ll have a vehicle once you get there?  Okay.  (Never mind that we used to drive all the way to Guatemala through Mexico with quite a few children.)

Suddenly I’ve had this drastic shift in perspective, and it’s making me think and trust on a whole new level.  I guess that’s a good thing.  Come what may, I have chosen to simply trust God.  Just because I’ve started gaining victory over some pesky sins doesn’t mean I have to make way for new ones.  Worry is a sin.  I hereby vow not to go there, at least not regularly.

Ugh.  Either I can trust my kids in His hands or I can’t.  It seems so ironic to start worrying now after all we’ve been through.

How about you?  Have you found certain things you used to take in stride are suddenly triggers for serious concern or even alarm?

This summer while in the States I watched an old rerun of Leave it to Beaver.  It’s funny how I used to identify with the kids on that show, but now I watch it as a mother and grandmother, and it’s a different show entirely.  Those dumb kids.  What are they thinking?

When it comes right down to it, I’m more comfortable reading the seemingly-dumb-kid side of the script than the reasonable-adult role. 

Either way, I think it’s much easier to be the one boarding the plane than the one waving good-bye from the other side.  That’s my opinion, and I’m sticking with it. 

IRL* Thanks, Mom, for loving us long-distance all these years.

The In-Between

One of my most memorable prayer letters started out with the shocking announcement that Jim and I were splitting up and leaving the children at the orphanage.  The truth is that while I was going to Canada for a son’s graduation, Jim was making a trip to South America, and a friend in Mexico was keeping the youngest kids for a few nights in the children’s home where she worked.

This summer is sort of like that.  The family is split up and all over the place.  I’m getting a small preview of the empty nest, which has its benefits to be sure, but it feels so unnatural.  The girls have been visiting their niece and older siblings for a few weeks, and Jonny, our youngest son, has been working with an older brother in another state.  We are all over the place geographically.

Meanwhile I am spending four consecutive weekends in four different states during this whirlwind summer tour – slash- “home assignment.”  Jim and I welcome the simplicity of traveling together, just the two of us, but it still just feels odd.  When I think of it, nothing feels right any more.

Next week is our designated time to have all the kids “home” again, although we aren’t really going to be home, but in at our temporary home base in Ohio.  Even having all our adult kids back together isn’t exactly natural.  I trust it will be wonderfully fun, but it’s just not the norm any more.

After that I will be in Dallas for a long weekend visiting with my mom and siblings in the house where we grow up.  We can’t wait to be together again like old times, but nothing about it will seem normal either.

A side of me just wants to fast forward and be home, at my own house in Mexico, looking at photos of the summer, sorting it all out in quiet devotional times.  Right now I am getting weary of too much food, too little exercise, too many thoughts and too little solitude.  Summer trips to the U.S. are like that. 

My heart cries out for normal, but as my international friends keep reminding me, “Normal is just a setting on the dryer, and most of us don’t even have a dryer.”  There is no such thing as normal.  Not until much, much later.

What I am experiencing this summer is sort of the in-between phase between big family and empty nest.  What I am living here on earth is this unnatural in-between thing between earth and heaven.  I feel it strongly.  My heart yearns for a normal that doesn’t exist outside of heaven.  For now I only get glimpses every now and then.

Scripture says that all nations will hear the good news, “… and then finally the end will come.”  I’m clinging to that truth.  That’s what keeps me going when the kids are scattered all over the globe and home doesn’t feel like home any more.  That’s what gives me strength to be so far away from my precious grandbaby and aging mom and dmil.

Like you, I desperately long for the end to come, but at the same time, I want our loved ones overseas to hear the good news before He returns.  Until then, I keep striving ahead, muddling through the unnatural junctures of life, and embracing the reality that I am doing something worthwhile.

One lie saying I keep hearing this summer is “It’s all good.”  It’s not true yet, but it will be someday.  No one can convince me that “it’s all good” to be so far away from so many loved ones.

IRL*My diet this summer is like my life, it’s not all good, and it’s not all normal or natural, but it’s all for a good purpose.

That's a Wrap!

In just a few short days I will be back in the land of plenty, where everything is available to those who can afford to buy them.  You can tell I have my usual ambivalent feelings about leaving home to live out of a suitcase for a few months, being tempted on all sides, while trying to raise money, not spend it, and to lose weight, not find it.

Right now I am surrounded by lists – things to do before we leave, people to see while we are stateside, stuff that needs to happen down here even while we are gone, and junk to purchase and cram into suitcases to bring back in August.  Meanwhile I am consumed with tidying up the house and tying up loose ends I don’t care to face three months and thousands of miles down the road.

With WOTH’s blessing, I’ve decided to take off the month of June to help transition into mini-furlough mode, so you won’t hear from me again until I am in Ohio in July. Rather than leave you dangling, I thought I would write one final post to tie up some loose ends with you, too – an update of sorts.  If I’ve left any other question marks in your mind, leave me a comment and I will attempt to answer it.  How’s that?

Plumbing. Would you believe we are just now almost getting the plumbing problems fixed?  Yep, a whole year of stench and inconvenience, and we almost have it resolved.  Almost.

Techy side.  My dream is coming true as I sing and chat with my little 5-month-old granddaughter.  This week I was blessed to share in her bedtime routine via Skype, watching my son read The Poky Little Puppy aloud to her in the nursery.  What a precious gift technology is to me.

Will they ever forgive me?  One estranged friend I have prayed for recently friended me on Facebook, and another is looking forward to seeing me this summer for this first time in more years than I can remember.  A third just chatted with me the other day on Facebook as though nothing stands between us.  God is blessing there, too.  There is hope, my friends!

Speaking of friends,  I am looking forward to a little reunion with some of my dearest high school friends – the first time in way, way too long.

At the end of my Unforgettable Week, yet another coworker passed away, and I blogged about it here.  Later I read a fascinating article about another fallen hero I never met or even heard of until his death – Jim Elliot’s brother, who faithfully served the Lord for over 60 years without any fanfare at all until he reached heaven.

Now that I’ve gotten you up-to-date I really must get busy on all the other items on my to-do list.  Procrastination stops here – right after I reread all your comments and suggestions from this post  and today’s post.

IRL* See you in July!

Transformational Sweat

Since no one shot me down last week, I had planned to continue the mini-series on acceptable sins, thinking I would have the perfect post on either laziness or grumbling and complaining. It turns out, I have been strangely industrious and – miracle of all miracles – haven’t had any complaints yet!

This is Holy Week – slash - spring break for our teens, but instead of hanging out, sleeping in, and being lazy all week, we are helping some coworkers who are hosting a team from the U.S. Unlike the rugged teams we normally send to suffer in a remote mountain location, this group is staying in Puerto Escondido, overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

While most people would jump at the opportunity to serve in such a beautiful place, I had to struggle get my heart straight before agreeing to come. Going to the beach, as I’ve mentioned before, is not my favorite thing. It requires a nasty long drive down a winding road up and down from 5000 feet down to sea level. And then being hot and sweaty is something I generally avoid like manual labor.

Considering the prospect of being in a non-air conditioned kitchen preparing dinner for 22 people, I imagined writing about a whole slew of other besetting sins. It turns out, however, that I have found great delight in doing this. The work the rest of the team (including my husband and kids) do each day is much more grueling than my going to market, shopping, disinfecting produce, chopping, cooking, and cleaning up.

Turns out I have the best job around – plus I get to sneak in an afternoon swim (while I pray, of course) before they get back. Plus we will eat in restaurants a couple of the seven nights, making my work even lighter. It’s as though God, knowing what a wimp I am, tests me to see if I am willing, and then He carries my load.

So we’ll gladly skip the post I thought I would have to write, and just praise the Lord that His mercies are new every morning, and that His grace is sufficient for all our needs. You know what? Even sweating isn’t such an awful plight to be dreaded. Joy has been my constant daily companion. I am so thankful I didn’t allow my flesh to talk me out of this opportunity.

Meanwhile our friends in Mali are going through terribly unsettling times following the coup last week, having had to evacuate before the borders closed on Sunday. There are few situations as dreaded or stressful than to be forced out of a country on short notice. My heart goes out to each of you who were affected, and especially your children leaving behind friends, pets, and toys that didn’t make the cut when the bags were quickly packed.

Sweating over a hot stove and being a servant is a privilege. Even if it were a struggle for me, I would not want to trivialize it in light of these serious times for so many of you. I have spent time each day interceding, not just for this work team, but also for each of you in your current struggles.

No one said this life was going to be easy, but I feel for those of you who are sweating these days of uncertainty. May you find comfort and encouragement as we anticipate Resurrection Sunday, as we keep busy at our tasks of reaching the lost before the coming of the Lord.

IRL*It's a privilege to serve up what He offers.

On the Streets Where I Lived

Is it really almost mid-January already? I know that time speeds up as we get older, but this year in particular seems to be racing in ridiculously fast motion.

Since New Year’s we have put 1300 miles on our old Suburban, driving to Guatemala and back with our three teens plus one college daughter. This epic road trip brought back many memories of insane border trips we used to make back before we had more permanent visas. This particular trip included an excursion or two down memory lane, as we took our youngest four children to the places where we used to live with the oldest three boys many years ago.

So much has changed over the years. Our old village is now incredibly modern. The roads are paved, people still dress in native garb but can be seen talking and texting on cell phones, and our old little house has been transformed into a 2-story modern house. Now the kids will never believe our wacky tales of life without indoor plumbing and having to hand-wash cloth diapers out in the yard.

Visiting our old language tutors, coworkers, and native missionaries, we were further astonished at how much things have improved for them over the years. The whole trip was a blessing.

Now it is time for back-to-school, back to healthier eating, back to exercise, and back to writing again. After visiting some friends in Chiapas on our way back to Oaxaca, I am adopting some new health gimmicks habits. In case you haven’t figured this out, I am forever on a quest for better nutrition.

Some of the things I have bought into in the past that I still dabble in (look them up on the web for your amusement/education):

• Neti pot - check out some hilarious videos on YouTube making fun of this natural remedy for sinus congestion.

• Kombucha tea -which my kids call “Happy Tea” due to its teensy (less than 1%) alcohol content . One of my longest lasting fads, almost daily fermenting behind the coffee pot; according to the Internet it will cure whatever ails you.

• Sea Salt instead of iodized table salt (okay, so what if it’s pink?).

• Alpiste - canary seed “milk” – supposedly good for high blood pressure.

• Nopal cactus – balances blood sugar levels, etc. Again the kids tease me about this which I am known to throw in my green smoothies along with spinach and fresh fruits.

• Coconut oil which you read about in 2010 when I used it in place of commercial skin care products, resulting in a sun tan.

• Oil pulling - another cheap way to detox the old body and supposedly whiten and clean teeth) – my latest craze.

Last week I brought back a 5-gallon drum of pure coconut oil, thanks to my health guru friends in Chiapas. I can’t wait to see what all I can do now that I don’t have to carefully ration my supply! I also bought a large supply of Himalayan salt.

How about you? Anything new you are dabbling in this New Year? Any new habits you want to develop? How about exercise? Found anything that works for you? What about daily devotions? I now have several free books on my Kindle, but I need to commit to one for 2012.

IRL* It may go fast, but I have a feeling this is going to be another wonderful year.

Knock, Knock. Who's There?

“Oh, no you’re not, young lady!” seems to be the theme of my week, only minus the young part. It’s not me the mother talking, but me the daughter hearing these words. Ack. Just when I thought I was grown up enough to make my own decisions and do my own thing…

Thwarted. Repeatedly. Every time I turn around, Dad seems to be saying, “Oh, no you don’t.” Again I am out of control. He’s calling the shots.

This morning at breakfast my ds told an old knock-knock joke that I once told a friend, thinking she might see herself in it, but she didn’t. Today it hit dangerously close to home.

Knock-knock.

Who’s there?

Control Freak…. Now this is the part where you say ‘Control Freak who?’

Ack. I never thought this was particularly my problem, but suddenly nothing is going my way, and I realize again that I must lay down the reins all day long, every day of my life.

And you know what? When I do, I invariably find that God’s ways are better than my original plans.

The weekend retreat was lovely, and the messages were exactly what I needed. It was only behind the scenes that any power struggles occurred between the Trail Guide and myself.

Day one, we had planned a lovely 5-plus hour drive to the retreat center, just our family and the conference speaker and his wife, who have been dear friends for over twenty years. Then dh informed me we were caravanning with another family. Then the family informed us they were taking another family in their van, and yet a third vehicle was following them with another family of six.

First stop was McDonald’s. I thought we would drive through very quickly before leaving the city and take some burgers for lunch. Thwarted. It wasn’t yet noon, so all we could get was breakfast. Then the three other families decided they would go into McDonald’s to order. Forty minutes later we were finally on the road.

My plan was to arrive in plenty of time to get registered and settled before the first session, but due to a string of complications (road work, long potty stops, etc.), our 5-plus hour trip took a full 8 hours. It wasn’t bad, mind you, just not what I had envisioned. The poor speaker had to literally climb out of the car and walk straight to the podium and start speaking.

And so it went for the rest of the weekend. It’s like we remind the newbie missionaries, “Not bad, just different.” That’s my new mantra of the week. Surely I will soon stop trying to micromanage and allow the King of the universe to dictate what each day will hold.

IRL*Meanwhile, I am awaiting the imminent birth of my first granddaughter, which I had hoped (and planned) to announce today. ...

Ask Jamie Jo: Reverse-Reverse Culture Shocker

Earlier this month a reader sent an email that deserves a serious and thoughtful response. I have written three entire posts attempting to address the issue of reverse culture shock in reverse--I kept starting over, feeling each time that it wasn't adequate. None of the three did it justice. I am counting on you to flesh it out with personal experiences in the comment section.

Nicolette spent the summer in the States after her first three years on the field. She had been warned to expect reverse culture shock back in the home country, and wasn’t surprised when it happened. What she wasn’t expecting was the wave of culture shock that hit when she returned to the field.

You can read her blog post “The Culture Shock that No One Tells You About” here. Basically she poses more questions than I can answer in one short post, but I will say truthfully that, yes, I still go through that shock of re-entry both coming and going. It does get easier, and the transition happens more quickly each time around, but muddling through the discomfort of a major change is inevitable.

My first random thought is that flying has a lot to do with it. In the early years we used to drive back and forth from Guatemala to the States. In that way, we could ease ourselves in and out of cultures gradually. Flying makes the re-entry so abrupt at both ends of the trip. That could be a factor. Think of the old-time missionaries literally taking the slow boat to China. By the time they got there, they were ready to be there. This isn’t necessarily true with air travel.

Secondly, I think we tend to idolize our adopted country while we are stateside. We paint such a rosy portrait of life overseas that we start to believe it ourselves. Returning to the nitty gritty of reality can be a bit of a shock and disappointment just as intense as the disgruntled feelings we experience in the U.S. Neither place seems quite right any more.

I could hang my head in shame having to admit that I haven’t arrived, but the truth is that I am not home yet. It is only natural that I will feel out of place both here and in the U.S. Neither place is my home. The unsettling discomfort of homesickness and culture shock is a wonderful reminder that I will always be in transition until the day I land in heaven. That’s the good news, my friends.

Meanwhile, culture and language learning is a lifelong process. It’s never finished.

And lastly, may we never be so naïve as to forget that there is still a villain in our story who wants to rob us of our joy and replace it with confusion and misunderstanding. Keeping a journal is a wonderful way to document and analyze the wild swings of emotion we experience on the field. I mention it often, but a great tool and weapon is to make a list of things that make you thankful.

IRL* I am thankful most of all that this is not my home!

Tapering Off: Does that have to be the norm?

This summer is all about family. I am consumed with travel itineraries. Dh is attending a family reunion with his mom in Wisconsin this week. Tomorrow, 16-year-old dd is visiting her big sister in Colorado before we all meet up in Illinois. Next week I will leave with the remaining two children, ages 12 and 14, to spend a week with ds and his fiancé before the wedding (!). Ds from Canada will join us for that week, too. The following week I’ll see the eldest ds and his wife, who are expecting my first granddaughter!

With the anticipation of many joy-filled reunions coming up, I’ve been on the Lingo phone and Skype a lot more than usual. Suddenly we can’t wait to see each other, so we are chatting almost daily. After the wedding, I’m sure the visiting will continue at a higher pace than usual, until it gradually tapers off to our norm, which is a couple of weeks between communication. Eventually real life consumes us all.

It’s like going to see the dentist. Before a check-up, I tend to pay a lot of attention to my teeth, trying to get them cleaned up before getting them cleaned. (How dumb is that?) Then after they are professionally cleaned, I am super diligent to brush and floss for the first few months, but when it’s time for my next appointment, I find myself digging out the floss again.

It’s inexcusable how neglectful I get the more time that passes between visits, whether with friends, family, or dentists. I might even argue the same applies to household help. We dash around tidying up the house if a maid is coming to clean, and then we work hard to try to preserve the clean house once she leaves. That never lasts long, though, unless we are expecting company. Clutter eventually reigns (or rains?).

Unfortunately, the same principle also applies to my times with God. The more I hang out with Him, the more I want to. Then if I am not super careful, I can easily fall back into bad habits of rushing through “mandatory” conversations with Him each day, allowing clutter to take over my daily agenda.

This summer I took the 90-day challenge with one of my readers I am blessed to know IRL. (Thanks, Inky’Spot!) We’ve been reading through the whole Bible since June. It takes me over an hour most days, and even longer if I journal, pray, and think over what I have read. It’s been a fabulous experience. The more time I spend with Jesus, the more time I want to spend with Him, just like with my family and friends.

Today is day 57, and I up to Jeremiah. I have no idea how I will carve out time for this luxury once I fly up to be with my family next week, but for now I am hooked.

IRL*Keeping up with adult children, cleaning house, flossing teeth, diet, exercise, daily Bible reading, and warfare prayer…. Discipline is such a virtue worth pursuing and maintaining.

Cinnamon and Sandwiches

Another true confession.

I used to try to manipulate my kids' memories of their mother by purposely doing amazing things that I was sure would win me a place in the Missionary Mom Hall of Fame. Things I could imagine my children remembering fondly after I die. Things to place me on a pedestal right up there with Edith Shaeffer, Mrs. "Art of Homemaking" herself.

One of these fabulous feats was to start every long road trip with fresh homemade cinnamon rolls. Yes, just for the sake of future glory, I began a tradition of making a big batch of cinnamon rolls the night before we would leave for a journey to the States (see sidebar for recipe). I would put them in the fridge to rise overnight, and then first thing in the morning, I would pop them in the oven to bake while Jim finished loading the car.

Then the children would experience the indescribable blessing of waking to the amazing aroma of cinnamon rolls, which would soon permeate the car as we piled in and prepared for breakfast on the road. What a wonderfully devoted mother I was, right?

Ah, it's a fond memory to me even now. I love cinnamon rolls!

Unfortunately, my kids don't see it that way. What they remember (besides the long grueling 20-plus hours in the car before reaching Texas) is regurgitating those lovely cinnamon rolls on the first stretch of barfy, curvy highway. One child in particular still cannot stand cinnamon rolls because of that negative association. Walking through a mall and smelling Cinnabon does not stir up fond memories for her, but evokes a gagging sensation instead.

Even worse, this same child cannot stand sandwiches for the same reason. Living in Mexico, we seldom eat sandwiches for a quick easy meal. Instead we tend to eat beans and rice, quesadillas, nachos, or leftovers. (Okay, and even cereal when Dad's away.) But seldom sandwiches unless they are tortas (hot submarine-type sandwich made on a bolillo--like a French roll--with smashed beans, avocado, Oaxaca cheese, tomato, jalapeno, and sometimes a slice of lunch meat or scrambled eggs with chorizo - yum!).

On a long car trip, I would make tuna or egg salad, and simply make the sandwiches as we needed them, so we wouldn't waste any uneaten sandwiches. I would also take along a few peanut butter sandwiches for the first day on the road. That's the only time they remember eating sandwiches, and the memory grosses them out.

Great. Now I have children who hate not only cinnamon rolls, but sandwiches, too.

IRL*So much for manipulating memories...

My Old Restless Companion

In the early years our visas only lasted six months at a stretch. We made the dreaded border runs twice a year to renew them. The absurd thing is I actually enjoyed those journeys, especially the trips to Texas, which allowed me a visit to Stuff-Mart* to restock on things we needed and frivolous items we simply preferred.

On our last official “border run,” we were bummed to only receive sixty days instead of the usual six months on our visas. No way could we pack up however-many-kids-we-had-at-the-time and run back to the Rio Grande every eight weeks, even if the children managed to outgrow their clothes that fast! We finally switched over to more permanent resident status.

That’s when I noticed that my coping mechanisms seemed to only last about five months; after that, I became antsy and ready to plan a trip of some sort.

In fact, I would hit a downright slump twice a year right on schedule. I would wake up in a funk with no logical explanation. Once I figured it out, I just laughed over it, and then went on with living cross-culturally with no escape in sight.

Today, things are different once again. The three remaining children at home are Mexican-born, and therefore need no visas. That’s nice. I’ve learned to cope with Mexican living, the good with the bad, year-round. More or less. Some days I still get overwhelmed with the noise and stench interesting smells.

I was doing fine, pondering our lovely summer in the States—a time of blissful invisibility while some wounds healed over. I was enjoying our first week of home schooling, hosting a young teacher while she looks for housing, and honestly feeling content. Then one morning I woke up with my old restless companion, and I felt a funk coming on. This is way too soon to start feeling that again.

All I can say is that life has become too routine, too predictable. My old norm (especially when there were seven children living at home) was high-stress, crazy, and anything BUT predictable. I had no time to even think about contentment or lack of it. Now I find myself on auto pilot. Life seems too easy somehow. I’m not sure I like it this way.

How ungrateful can I be? God has blessed me with every good and perfect gift, and I am momentarily discontented. After what I said (and thought) last week in my blog post about “those” kinds of missionaries, I can honestly see the potential to become a snarky, bored missionary if I’m not careful. Yikes. Pardon me while I run back to the true Source of all contentment.

IRL*Striving to restore my old sense of adventure, minus my old restless companion.

The Amazon Question

“Where do you live?” is my second least favorite question. This summer alone, I can’t count how many times I’ve pulled out a cheat sheet with my temporary address and cell phone number. To get groceries at the lowest prices, you need a special card, but to get the little card you have to give your address and phone number.

Today’s task is memorizing our summer address and teaching it to the children. One trip to the U.S., I failed to do this, resulting in two lost teenagers being hauled into the police station. The line of questioning went like this: Where do you live? We don’t know. (Yeah, right.) Where are you from? Mexico. (Yeah, right.) Where were you born? Guatemala. (Yeah, right.) What is your phone number? We don’t have a phone. (Yeah, right.) And so forth.

Another embarrassing incident happened on a summer mini-furlough while adding 15,000 miles to our family van. We were visiting a nice church, where we already stood out because of the size of our family, plus the fact that my kids were not wearing proper “Sunday shoes.” To make matters worse, the Sunday school teacher thought that we were homeless street people because my toddler didn’t know where we lived. When the teacher tried to rephrase the question “Where do you live?” by asking, “Where do you sleep?” - my little one innocently answered, “In the van!”

Each time a child fills out college applications, we get stumped with the second question: Address? Should we put the Mexico address, thus establishing that our child is a TCK (third culture kid)? No, because then any possible acceptance letter might get lost in the mail. If we use a stateside address, which one would be the most logical one to use? Such a simple question yet it has no obvious answer.

You laugh, but how about you? How many options are currently in your Amazon address book? Unless you regularly tidy up and delete unused addresses, you likely have at least a dozen addresses where you have had things shipped. A mission house here and there, a short-term mission team leader’s house, a supporting church, your home office, your parents’ house, etc.

Am I right?

Lastly, what about going in and out of your host country? The immigration papers require an address where you will be staying. (We never “stay” anywhere!) This recent trip I was corrected for putting my “country of residence” as the USA. I was told I should have put Mexico. In the past it was the reverse. As long as we keep a permanent US address, I was told to put our residence as the US, not Mexico. Whatever.

With all this confusion, I can honestly say I am very glad to know where my true citizenship lies. No question about that. My PERMANENT residence is in the arms of a loving, gracious, and generous Savior. Just like the apartment we left last week, I’m only passing through this old dirty world on my way to someplace much bigger and better. Heaven dominates my thoughts these days.

IRL* Today: No idea where I am. Tomorrow: not a clue. Forever: ;)

P.S. Someday I'll tell you what my least favorite question is.