by Andrea
"Two things I ask of you, Lord;
do not refuse me before I die:
Keep falsehood and lies far from me;
give me neither poverty nor riches,
but give me only my daily bread.
Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you
and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’
Or I may become poor and steal,
and so dishonor the name of my God."
Proverbs 30:7-9
I woke with this verse in my head. Eleven suitcases sounds like a lot: a gluttonous amount of stuff to begin a life with. Even though I saw the pile of “stuff I want to take to Albania” growing in my dining room, there was just no way for me to comprehend how small 50lbs is. When it came time to put the carefully curated piled of items into the suitcases, there was too much stuff and not enough suitcase. We even decided to pay for an extra suitcase, but so many things were left behind. In the exhausted final chaos of weighing bags and taking things out and putting them in, I barely know what made it into our bags and what was left behind. My compassionate family offered to send many items in boxes to follow us later. I was desperately trying to make sure no one lost their most beloved items and that the items we truly needed for life made it inside. I had planned in this interim in Texas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma to find needed shoes and replacement clothes for our growing children, but with all 11 suitcases hovering between 45-50lbs, I’m not sure we can do much.
The whole process was ugly and made my already raw heart feel like it was being wrung out. I never imagined a giant timer ticking over my head while my exhausted body and dazed mind tried to stuff favorite things into already full suitcases. Wait... I have lived this scenario out before … in my nightmares. Going to bed at two AM the night before we flew out, my mind screamed at me to get up and get back at it, while my physical body begged for rest. I jerked awake every 15 minutes praying to God for the release of sleep. At one point I realized joyfully that I could finally apply Philippians 4:13 in context:
"I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength." Philippians 4:11-13
While still far, far from actual “want” or “hunger,” I can learn to be content in ALL circumstances. My children can learn to be content in all circumstances. It’s going to be okay. God has us.
Since flying out, I’ve tried to process the wrenching away of nearly everything I own at once. Sometimes it comes with a jolt waking me up: Oh no, I left a load of clothes in the dryer! Sometimes it’s a quiet sigh: I don’t think we brought enough cold weather clothing for James. Sometimes it’s a revelation. Standing and looking into my friend’s pristine microwave I think, Wow, I should really clean my microwave, and then I think, Wait, I don’t own a microwave anymore.
I’m looking forward to the aha moment. I’m looking forward to the feeling of relief that the albatross of our home, the quirky kitchen facet that never got hot on the first turn, the bathroom door that stuck, the myriad stains or scuffs or marks are not my responsibility anymore. The piles and piles of stuff that accumulated constantly no matter how diligently I tackled them: yarn and stamps and fabric, kinder egg toys and Lego and tiny useless shoes to unknown dolls, diet food and food that James bought randomly and food without dates at the bottom of our freezer for too long, art supplies and 5th grade science books and thousands of children’s paperbacks, my favorite far too worn out skirts and fuzzy slippers and lounging clothes, tinctures for stuffy noses and supplements for bladder issues and oils for stress, tools for fixing flat tires and paint brushes for touching up the walls and garden hoses for watering the yard. It’s all gone. Sometimes we were able to match an item up to the perfect person and see their eyes light up with gratitude and we felt warm and fuzzy inside to be able to give a gift of love to someone. Sometimes the gift was not received with the heart it was intended, and we felt the hollowness of it. Sometimes people looked at the stuff scattered around for how it might benefit them, and we had to avert our eyes and mumble, “…(They) joyfully accepted the plundering of their property (Heb 10:34)” it was necessary and important to let it go, but sometimes it felt like volunteering to be pillaged.
We frequently reminded each other of our Ukrainian brothers and sisters who did not have the luxury of choosing what happened to their most precious items. I reminded myself of the countless dark nights I had begged God to give us a different path than the one where I sat depressed in my home waiting for my overworked and abused husband to come home very late and defeated from a thankless job. And now here we were on the precipice of a new life where we got to live and work as a family for God’s kingdom in a beautiful country full of new friends and fresh food and sunshine, but the only way there was through the fire of surrender. So we got up each day and surrendered, over and over and over again. Now here we are in limbo, between homes, and it is a time of reflection, of healing. I still feel raw. I still feel like I have let my children and husband down by not doing my job “perfectly.” I still wonder what it is that I will wish so much that I had not surrendered. I KNOW there are things I will laugh at myself for keeping (yes, we have boxes we kept in Alaska). We went from carefully counting and labeling and documenting boxes to throwing random things into containers, and I have very little idea what was actually left behind. I hope at some point I can look back at this Andrea and say, “Aw, she did her best, and she made her sacrifice to the Lord and He honored it.” I have asked the amazing friends and family who stayed behind to deal with what was left to take pictures of the rooms once they are completely empty just so my brain can begin to let go of any feeling like it was all still there waiting on me. And I pray that I never accumulate so much again!
do not refuse me before I die:
Keep falsehood and lies far from me;
give me neither poverty nor riches,
but give me only my daily bread.
Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you
and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’
Or I may become poor and steal,
and so dishonor the name of my God."
Proverbs 30:7-9
I woke with this verse in my head. Eleven suitcases sounds like a lot: a gluttonous amount of stuff to begin a life with. Even though I saw the pile of “stuff I want to take to Albania” growing in my dining room, there was just no way for me to comprehend how small 50lbs is. When it came time to put the carefully curated piled of items into the suitcases, there was too much stuff and not enough suitcase. We even decided to pay for an extra suitcase, but so many things were left behind. In the exhausted final chaos of weighing bags and taking things out and putting them in, I barely know what made it into our bags and what was left behind. My compassionate family offered to send many items in boxes to follow us later. I was desperately trying to make sure no one lost their most beloved items and that the items we truly needed for life made it inside. I had planned in this interim in Texas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma to find needed shoes and replacement clothes for our growing children, but with all 11 suitcases hovering between 45-50lbs, I’m not sure we can do much.
The whole process was ugly and made my already raw heart feel like it was being wrung out. I never imagined a giant timer ticking over my head while my exhausted body and dazed mind tried to stuff favorite things into already full suitcases. Wait... I have lived this scenario out before … in my nightmares. Going to bed at two AM the night before we flew out, my mind screamed at me to get up and get back at it, while my physical body begged for rest. I jerked awake every 15 minutes praying to God for the release of sleep. At one point I realized joyfully that I could finally apply Philippians 4:13 in context:
"I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength." Philippians 4:11-13
While still far, far from actual “want” or “hunger,” I can learn to be content in ALL circumstances. My children can learn to be content in all circumstances. It’s going to be okay. God has us.
Since flying out, I’ve tried to process the wrenching away of nearly everything I own at once. Sometimes it comes with a jolt waking me up: Oh no, I left a load of clothes in the dryer! Sometimes it’s a quiet sigh: I don’t think we brought enough cold weather clothing for James. Sometimes it’s a revelation. Standing and looking into my friend’s pristine microwave I think, Wow, I should really clean my microwave, and then I think, Wait, I don’t own a microwave anymore.
I’m looking forward to the aha moment. I’m looking forward to the feeling of relief that the albatross of our home, the quirky kitchen facet that never got hot on the first turn, the bathroom door that stuck, the myriad stains or scuffs or marks are not my responsibility anymore. The piles and piles of stuff that accumulated constantly no matter how diligently I tackled them: yarn and stamps and fabric, kinder egg toys and Lego and tiny useless shoes to unknown dolls, diet food and food that James bought randomly and food without dates at the bottom of our freezer for too long, art supplies and 5th grade science books and thousands of children’s paperbacks, my favorite far too worn out skirts and fuzzy slippers and lounging clothes, tinctures for stuffy noses and supplements for bladder issues and oils for stress, tools for fixing flat tires and paint brushes for touching up the walls and garden hoses for watering the yard. It’s all gone. Sometimes we were able to match an item up to the perfect person and see their eyes light up with gratitude and we felt warm and fuzzy inside to be able to give a gift of love to someone. Sometimes the gift was not received with the heart it was intended, and we felt the hollowness of it. Sometimes people looked at the stuff scattered around for how it might benefit them, and we had to avert our eyes and mumble, “…(They) joyfully accepted the plundering of their property (Heb 10:34)” it was necessary and important to let it go, but sometimes it felt like volunteering to be pillaged.
We frequently reminded each other of our Ukrainian brothers and sisters who did not have the luxury of choosing what happened to their most precious items. I reminded myself of the countless dark nights I had begged God to give us a different path than the one where I sat depressed in my home waiting for my overworked and abused husband to come home very late and defeated from a thankless job. And now here we were on the precipice of a new life where we got to live and work as a family for God’s kingdom in a beautiful country full of new friends and fresh food and sunshine, but the only way there was through the fire of surrender. So we got up each day and surrendered, over and over and over again. Now here we are in limbo, between homes, and it is a time of reflection, of healing. I still feel raw. I still feel like I have let my children and husband down by not doing my job “perfectly.” I still wonder what it is that I will wish so much that I had not surrendered. I KNOW there are things I will laugh at myself for keeping (yes, we have boxes we kept in Alaska). We went from carefully counting and labeling and documenting boxes to throwing random things into containers, and I have very little idea what was actually left behind. I hope at some point I can look back at this Andrea and say, “Aw, she did her best, and she made her sacrifice to the Lord and He honored it.” I have asked the amazing friends and family who stayed behind to deal with what was left to take pictures of the rooms once they are completely empty just so my brain can begin to let go of any feeling like it was all still there waiting on me. And I pray that I never accumulate so much again!
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