We moved here over 2 1/2 years ago, forging our way through cold and snow shortly after Christmas to arrive in the land of the sun, the song “All the Way My Savior Leads Me” flowing out of our car speakers. We pulled our trailer directly into my sister Kim and her family’s driveway, greeted by the cousins whooping and waving from the yard. Coming out of a deep sense of God’s leading, our experience has been nothing of what we expected, but I know everything that he did.
Among God’s coy expectations and his well-laid plans has been the deep and true work of love and inner restoration between an older sister and a younger one. A quiet and slow unspoken realization that two very different women can pursue Christ in different ways, each as true as the other, each showing the other things they might not otherwise have known about God and the way he woos, each growing in admiration and respect for the other. And the children– their mirth together has been infectious, the times of reading and prayer with them unforgettable, the kindness and respect developed firm.
Love trumps all. Family never says goodbye; eternity for fellow believers is sure and sweet.
The effects of the indelible memories etched into my heart will be unraveled as time moves forward, enabling me to rise up in greater wholeness and joy, celebrating the gift this time has been.
This was our last supper tonight. We said farewell in the same yard where they greeted us 2 1/2 years ago, their flight leaving tomorrow to move them all to a new calling in California. Bittersweet, but full with the knowledge that when God calls, each of our families is committed to going. And so ends another chapter, the new one yet to be read as I feel the page turning…
ANGELA BLYCKER 