Cynthia's Thoughts: Change vs Transition

The last 6 months have been a roller coaster for me. We moved from our first family home in Florida to Bob's parents property in Illinois. Our new home is in a city that we went to college in and each called home for several years. Yet as we returned it didn't feel like home. The people we had known before had moved on or away and the places where we expected to fit in we didn't. And in the midst of finding a new home in this city we were traveling constantly. We were met everyday with unexpected reasons it didn't feel like home. We couldn't escape to SeaWorld for a getaway day, we had to drive over an hour to go to our favorite stores. Our date night dinner options were limited. The leaves were falling in October and not December, that fallen log in the lake was not an alligator, constant reminders of what we left behind.

     One of our missionary friends attended training for their future assignment and wrote about Transition. Change is the external move to a new place while transition is the internal change. They don't always happen at the same rate. Finally after a crazy 6 months we have been not traveling for the past month and can focus on the transition to life in IL now that the change has happened. I read a blog this morning from a missionary mom in Niger who shared after 11 years in Africa she gets homesick every year in the fall. Each year she chooses “a process of confession, choosing contentment, thankfulness and praise.” I'm looking forward this Advent season to choosing this process.

      Jim Elliot a noted missionary once said, “Wherever you are, be all there.” I want to be all here in our new chapter of transition in Illinois. We cherish the memories from our years in Florida, we look forward to our life in Nigeria, but we live and embrace the live we are living in Illinois.  As I wrote our Holiday newsletter which is in the mail now, I was overcome with emotion as I documented the goodness of God in our lives.  As our plans turned out to be different that we initially thought, we could see God working in us and his goodness and Grace to us.  For all of that I am grateful and I wouldn't change it for the world.