Lovely Facebook reminded me last week of a picture I took with my wife two years earlier while waiting in the Vancouver airport to board our plane to Nepal. And, surprisingly, it stung.
I didn’t see it coming. But two years after moving to — and leaving so shortly thereafter — Nepal, there are still parts of my heart that clearly need healing.
The smile on my face that night couldn’t be any bigger. And while the beard is full of grey hair, my face looks so much younger than it does today.
For years God called us to raise support for our work in Nepal, and dutifully, we did it. Giving all we had away, leaving our Pacific Northwest lives behind us for what was an unknown. Hopes and dreams of being united with our Nepali daughter. To live together as a complete family for the first time.
I’ve written before of the pain and loss we felt upon our return. Jolted out of one dream only to fall into another. All the while, God reminding us that we were in His hands, not He in ours.
For months, I fought, wrestled, angry at my lot, making sure all around me knew I didn’t like it.
Finally, I began to see more my new surroundings, wondering why we were here and not there, but looking more often forward than back.
Two years later, here we sit, and in a few hours, I’ll go outside, let out the chickens I’ve always wanted, survey the land we’ve been given and get ready for church, smiling at the work of repairing fences the day before.
God has so blessed our lives that it’s impossible not to be grateful. And I am.
Yet, every once in a while, and maybe forever, I’ll wonder what “supposed to be” would’ve looked like while trying to patiently wait for the fulfillment of His promise — the day when He brings my whole family together.
John Piper once said, “Occasionally weep deeply over the life you hoped would be. Grieve the losses. Then wash your face. Trust God. And embrace the life you have.”
So it’s OK to still feel an occasional sting.
Scripture says for “not one of the good promises which the Lord had made to the house of Israel failed; all came to pass,” (Joshua 21:45).
Regardless of the now-occasional hurt, these are words to live by. I believe them. I trust them. I know them to be true.