Letting Go...
The time has finally come, and we are on the road! Thanks to all of you who
came by and saw us off last Sunday. It was fun to share our home with you, and
see you one last time before we left town.
After a full year of preparation, the time has come. Last October, we ordered this new home. This October first we are sitting in Oregon--close to the Idaho border--just having visited with our son, Jimm, and his girlfriend, Cami, in Albany, Oregon.
It is hard to believe after all the preparation, that we are
"full-timers" now. Not your typical, retired full-timers, but
full-timers all the same. As we travel along, most RVer's are headed south for
the winter. We are too, after a short trip north to take care of some business
in South Dakota. We will become residents of South Dakota soon.
How do you do that...and why? Things are cheaper in South Dakota than they are in California, and being that we can pick any home state as our own now, we picked South Dakota. Jim has relatives there, so needing a mailing address is a bit easier with them there. Other than that, we get our S.D. driver's license, and then register to vote, and it's a done deal. Seems pretty easy to change states, doesn't it? Maybe it's a good time with the election and all...we shall see!
Saying good-bye, on the other hand, is not the fun part. We leave behind family and friends that we will miss greatly. We leave behind our church and our beautiful spot out in Castro Valley where we have been parking this home since April. What a blessing that has been.
We have seen so many pieces come together in this past year. God has done so many wonderful things, answered so many prayers, and prepared us for this time in our lives. Just last October we signed on the dotted line for our "home," not sure what we had just done. We put our home on the market, only to have it not sell, but having our son Chris move into it instead. We have had multiple yard sales, distributed furniture to friends and relatives, quit a job, and sold vehicles that carried many memories with them, the last being my blue Mustang. I did not expect that to be as hard as it was...but it was hard. (I was able to keep it until the last day.)
I asked God about this. Why...this was just a hunk of metal Lord, it shouldn't be so hard to give it up. You have prepared me for this day, but it was, and there's no denying that. As I thought more about this, this letting go, God was showing me something. As I left this car with our old neighbors who bought it, there were tears. I was asked if I really wanted to do this...yes I did. I said it was a good thing. But still, the tears. Why?
Because letting go can be so very hard. This car was bought when Phil was first ill, and he and I were in Fresno living with my mother-in-law. Jim and Chris remained in Germany, and we needed a car in the states for Phil and me to use. Was it a practical choice? I doubt it, but it was a good one. There was never a day that I drove that car that I did not enjoy it. Each time I got into it, it was a fun experience to drive. The days that we would spend all day in the clinic for treatments, we would come out and get into that car...put the top down, and let the wind blow out the smells and the heaviness of the day. It was good.
In between treatments, we would take that car many places and see many sights, enjoying the time and relaxing together. When the whole family returned to the states, it was the only car we had for awhile and we squeezed into it to get around. It is NOT a family car, but it was still good.
The car served us well, me well, and I loved that little car. It was not an exotic sports car like some might choose, but it was of my choosing, and it was my dream car. But, it was time to let it go, and that was hard...and good.
Just as saying good-bye to all was hard, and good. There was a "letting go" on their part also, and it was hard, but they also knew it was good. They voiced that. When we pulled out on Sunday, we really did not leave them behind because all that they have poured into our lives in the last six years we spent in Pleasanton, California, goes with us. It is a "letting go" but also a "taking with." The car, is a letting go, but I will always carry the memories with me. The memories are not in the car, they are in my heart. The people we left behind are not just in the Bay Area, they are carried in our hearts forever. God has not brought us to this place in our lives alone. It has been a group effort, and we realize that fully.
As we look back over the last years of our lives, we realize the difficult path that we have been on. We realize that we would not have made it down that path without the love of God and the love that God poured through all those we left behind. They say no man is an island, and how true that is. We did not struggle through these trials alone, but with the help of others. With their hugs and their prayers, and their spiritual and emotional help along the way. That help has made us who we are today. We do not carry with us the scars from the past, as much as we carry with us the healing we have seen. The healing that God has done and continues to do through those that surround us. Many have no idea what they have contributed to our lives, but I know there will come a day in heaven when those people will be rewarded for their kindness in our lives. And those are the people that had to let us go, release us to the path that God is calling us to now.
Two years ago, I went on a retreat with the staff in our church office. I was pretty new on the job, but it was retreat time so I joined the women in the office up at beautiful Hidden Lake. I remember thinking at that time--it seemed like the calm before the storm. Phil was very ill. It was the weekend before his sixteenth birthday, and he died just two days short of one month after his birthday. The end was very near and although one cannot really comprehend that, my spirit knew better than I what was ahead. The weekend was a good time of reflection and laughter with new friends.
This last week, I again went on a retreat with the office staff I worked with. Once again, it seemed a place of the calm before something, but it did not seem like a storm. It seemed more like a time to be still and look ahead at all that God has for our future. It seemed like the calm before an exciting new adventure that was to come. Thinking of those two times moved my heart in an unexpected way. It brought back emotions of that weekend two years ago that I did not expect, and it made me all the more grateful for the distance we have come in healing from such a deep hurt. God is mighty and awesome and will restore the joy in our lives if we will only allow Him too. I have seen that. I have experienced that, and continue to do so.
As we venture out now on our very first long journey, one where we don't have to return home in a week or in ten days, it is a miracle of sorts. One that shows us how very much God loves us. How much He wants to bless us and how much He wants to bind up the brokenhearted. The journey in the past, has been a treacherous one, and one with many dark valleys. As we pulled out of town, we listened to a song on the Max Lucado "Traveling Light" CD. As the words were sung, "I must go through the valley to stand upon the mountain of God," I related to it well. The valley has been long and it has been hard, but the mountaintop with God is so good. It will be at different times for different people in all different scenarios, but it will come even when it seems the hard times will never end. There were times when I crumbled to the floor, wailing, until I thought I would die, but they did not last. They were not meant to. God will eventually dry our tears, and let us move on as we "let go" of what lies behind.
Just recently I again shed some tears, but they are different now. It's almost like a medicine that the body needs, one that makes it feel better for the release that it gives. When the tears were finished, I offered them up to God, to collect, and I knew that He would. I knew that He saw the pain, and He knew the heartache and the missing, and He was not taking it lightly. He knew what the past held, and He was helping me into the future that is ahead, with His strength.
As we came down to our last two weeks in the Bay Area, the emotions started to rise. We knew they would, and we knew that although it would be hard to say good-bye and get rid of the last of our possessions, we knew that it was time. We knew that when we pulled out, it would be an exciting day, and it was. It seemed so right, the time had come, and there seemed to be little question about it then. Sometimes it seems that the enemy will attack and attack and attack until the very last minute and then he will give up and say, "GO THEN!" Perhaps he gets worn out, and gives up in the end. We left town very peaceful, very happy, and very covered in prayer from so many. It was good!
Their time to let us go had come, and although it was hard, they knew it was good. They knew God had brought us to this point, and it was their duty to send us off with their blessings. They had invested years into our lives, and like sending your children off to school, or off to be married, it can be hard, but it is a step that needs to be taken for growth to continue.
If we had remained, if we had not delighted ourselves in the Lord, and prayed for the desires of our heart, we would not be in this rest stop in Oregon tonight. Jim would probably be working an eight to five job. I would probably still be working at the church, we would probably still be in our old home, and our lives would be "normal." Many would not even notice that something was amiss. Perhaps we would not even notice it either, because we had never ventured out far enough on faith to realize that God was calling us elsewhere. But God would know, and perhaps when we arrived in heaven, we would see what we had missed. I don't know how heaven works, but if there is a room, and if in that room there are gifts leftover that God was never able to give to us because we never trusted Him enough to receive them, then we would know.
I was reading a book today as we traveled along called, "When The Pieces Don't Fit...God Makes The Difference." the author talks about a journey God had called her on. She wrote "I didn't know why I was here. I wasn't even sure it was where God wanted me, but I decided I'd rather go and be wrong, than not go and be wrong!" It reminded me of Phil saying, "I'd rather believe in God and be wrong, than not believe in God and be wrong." Sometimes, if we don't go ahead and step out on faith, we have a lot more to miss than stepping out and making a mistake. I believe God is not displeased with our mistakes when we are following Him to the best of our ability. When we are searching for Him, He honors that faith. When we ignore Him, I'm not so sure. Perhaps we then end up missing out on the very best He has for our lives, and perhaps we never even get to know what that is!
I'm not sure why we are here, on the road. I have some ideas. Jim has some ideas, and they seem like some pretty good ones, but we don't know the full picture. That is the way God is, and we can accept that. What we couldn't accept is to miss out on whatever that full picture is. Not after all that we have been through in these last years. We don't want to miss out on anything that we were meant to learn through the precious life of our youngest son. If he came so that our lives might be lived to the fullest, then to the fullest they will be lived!! God's Son Jesus came so that we would have life, and have it abundantly, and we don't want to miss out on one second of it! If we step in the wrong direction looking for that life, I don't believe it will be such a bad thing. If we don't step out at all, looking for it, what a waste it would be!
As we have just begun our travels, of course the "just do it" person in me is already looking wide-eyed at what God has planned for us here. I started to feel that I was already missing the boat, that I was not doing all that God has called us to do, and maybe I was already disappointing God with our "work" on the road. Thank you Janice, for giving me the book I mentioned above for the start of our travels. God had me read that book today for a reason, because it has truly helped to set me on the right path. In the book the author is also on a journey with some actual traveling, and some just her journey through life. What she helped me to see before I got too distracted with my own thinking is that God has one thing out here for us, and that is to SEEK HIM. She writes
"The calling...to seek God.
The dream...to help others discover intimate fellowship with God.
I gave God my fantasies.
He gave me His Dream."
My calling is to seek God. That is what she writes. That is what I need to
remember above all else. When I seek God each day, the rest will be automatic.
How can I not share Him with others that we meet when He is my everything?
How can His light not shine from me if I am absorbed with Him?
How can I not find His calling, when I call to Him each day for guidance?
I need not be frustrated because the way seems slow, as long as each day I spend the day with Him, learning all that He has for me to learn. He will do the rest. He has promised that. I need to remember that! Then it's a no brainer because He has my every thought!
I was asked by my son Jimm if these were our 40 years of wilderness
wanderings. I laughed and told him I don't believe so. They are more like
entering into the Promised Land. The wilderness seems to be behind us. We have
seen the fire, and the valleys, and felt the pain. We have survived because God
has led us through it all. It now seems time to enter the Promised Land and
share His truth with those we meet along the way. To share His hope
with those who have lost theirs. To travel where He leads us and see Him
everywhere. God revealed to me that we are to be called "True Hope
Travelers." (Check out our web-site) I can't even tell you that I know
exactly what comes under that title, I just know that God has sent us on our way
under that umbrella and is asking us to believe that He is with us. Our hearts
are at peace and it is good!
As we travel down the road and the highway stretches out before us, I see the
sun shining on the hills ahead and I am so comforted. I know that it would have
been easy to miss this calling, to stay put and do something that seemed a bit
more secure, but being out here now, it seems so right. As I read this verse
They refused to enter the Promised Land,
for they wouldn't believe His solemn oath to care for them.
Instead, they pouted in their tents.
Psalm 106:24,25
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I knew that could very easily have been us. We could have refused the Promised Land, wondering if God would really take care of us. We could have stayed in our home and pouted the rest of our lives over our loss. That would have seemed the easy thing to do, and perhaps God would have even understood. After all, the Bible says Jesus was a man well acquainted with sorrow and suffering. He surely would have understood, but that is not what God wants for us. He wants so much more if we will only accept it from Him.
It starts by letting go...it starts by cleaning out dressers that belonged to a child you adored, but who no longer needs what they contained. It starts by having yard sales to rid yourself of the accumulation of years of belongings that started to own you. It starts by cutting the ties, no matter how much it hurts to do so, knowing that the freedom found will be worth the pain. It starts when we step out on faith in a direction that seems to have no clear-cut path, and finding that the path you end up on is exactly where you were meant to be. It starts by not fearing this world, but embracing it because God created it! It starts with one step, when that one step doesn't seem to be near enough, and finding out that just one step leads to many things we could have missed had we not just given it a try.
I thought of Jesus on this earth, as I was talking to my son Jimm again during our visit. We talked of Jesus walking this earth, and I joked with him about how Jesus must have felt with this gravity thing He and the Father created. I wondered if He ever looked up at his Father in heaven and questioned the thinking behind it. Jesus had to walk most every place He went. If the gravity had been that of the moon, travel could have been a bit easier and more fun. But no, it was one step at a time, and only a few miles covered each day along the journey. We would be frustrated--how many people could we reach with that mode of travel? And no P.A. system, no TV., no Internet to get the message out. Jesus could have been frustrated wondering if His Words would ever reach the whole world. How could that be possible with an original following of just twelve men? He could have said, "Forget it. This will never work." But He kept on, and because He walked this earth and shared His message of hope, I sit here today writing this message of hope to you over 2000 years later!
One step, just one step, can change a world when God is in control. If we miss that first step, we may miss out on the greatest adventure of our lives whether it be in our own home town, or across the world. We are called to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ. He started it, and we are called to finish it, by seeking Him above all else!
I will freely do what the Father requires of me
so that the world will know that I love the Father.
Come, let's be going. (John 14:31 LB)
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Hope to see you in our travels!
Living in His peace and joy,
Diane
