Facing The Giants

So we have had a busy last 2 weeks crammed with more emotions than I can count. My mom came for a visit which was wonderful! We also celebrated Maddie's 2nd Birthday and the end of Rob's dad's radiation period. We visited the city that we are considering moving to next year. We said goodbye to 2 families we love dearly, that He is moving to other places for now. As with all of life there are highs and lows; moments of joy, moments of fear, moments of laughter, and moments of sorrow. Life is a beautiful thing in many ways. The range of emotions and experiences we encounter is truly amazing. It can be both exciting and overwhelming. For about a week in the midst of all of that I became completely overwhelmed. For a variety of reasons I just felt unable to sit quietly and claim the peace that I knew was available in my Father.

We are prayerfully contemplating moving to a different location next year. It is actually not very far away from our current location. It is probably about an hour car ride. I say probably because we really aren't sure yet; for one thing we don't have a car, for another thing we have never been on the new bridge that supposedly is now open to connect the 2 cities. We have traveled there on the long old highway that wraps the bay and it was about 2 hours or so, we have also traveled there by ferry which is again about a 2 1/2 hour trip. Since before we arrived in China, we have known this day was coming, but it was easy to ignore because it was always in the distance. Our plan in coming here was to spend 1 or 2 years learning in an already established location and then to branch out to a new location to start again. I have never feared this moment until now. I didn't plan to fall so in love with where we are living. It is a beautiful city full of amazing people who have become our friends and our family. We are happy here. We have a decent job, friends, a good preschool, a great fellowship, a wonderful apartment and family nearby. Contemplating leaving all that behind makes me so sad. When we visited 2 weeks ago, the reality of what we were about to do sunk in for me. We would need to find a new job, find a new home, find a new preschool and start all over again. Moving and making new friends is always intimidating, even more so when you have to make friends using a language which you barely get by with. The city we are moving to has very few Western faces which means we will mostly using Chinese. It will be great for all of our language skills but difficult on our minds&hearts. You have no idea how exhausting it can be to speak a 2nd language for days or hours on end. It actually hurts your brain :-) After a long initial struggle, Robbie is so happy in preschool and is learning. The thought of uprooting him to a new school to start again makes me feel nauseous. There may be no other western children in our area which will really force my kids to either learn Chinese or be lonely. I realize that will probably be good for their language skills, but it hurts my heart to think of how hard that will be for them. We had initially hoped that another family would join us on our journey, but due to circumstances beyond their control they are on their way back to the states as I speak. So for all intents and purposes we mostly likely will have no other weekend fellowship to begin with and very likely no good friends. That is always the way it is when you start something new, but I will deeply miss our current weekend family. They are a joy & blessing to my soul. I will deeply miss so many relationships that we have here and I am afraid that I will not find ones like them when we go.

Anyways, all of the change, and the unknown, and the goodbyes, and the fear really gripped my heart. I was visibly struggling and just felt unable to bring it to our Father. So He came to me. As we were having our family devo's with the kids, Rob opened up the book to the story of Joshua and the spies. He started reading about their fears in following Him to the promised land. As the tears started rolling I asked Rob if he picked that story on purpose. Turns out he didn't, he just happened to open to that page. I knew then that He meant it just for me. If I couldn't come bring my fears to Him then He would come speak softly to me. As I pondered that story over the next few days, He gently reminded me that I had been here before. I had almost forgotten that I had every one of these exact fears before we moved here the 1st time. It was easy to forget because He did such amazing things and all of my fears were groundless. He fulfilled our every need. The people of Isreal watched Him do amazing things, part the Red Sea, make water come from rocks, ect.......... the list is extensive. But when it came time for them to trust Him again, all they could see were the giants. The promised land was filled with giants. And despite all He had done in the past they failed to trust that He was bigger than the giants. So hear I stand, about to go enter another foreign place, and I am just the same. Despite all He has done in the past (not even the distant past), I am afraid. The giants look bigger to me then He does. My memory is so short, my heart is so blind, my faith is so small. Why does He even bother with me? But thankfully He does keep working with me despite all of that. So in June I will go face my giants with the knowledge that HE is infintely bigger than every one of them and has already gone before me.

Joshua 1:9 "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go."