Today was kind of an emotional day for me. I’m going to try to wear my heart on my sleeve ‘cause personally, I almost really don’t want to talk about it but the emotions are real and if it can encourage someone else, then glory be to God!
Brian and I had to talk about some things last night such as additional insurance pertaining to the car, and then we needed to talk about the trailer back home in Ohio. So far, we are considering two options. Either have it rented out (which has been hard worked on by our lead Pastor and anyone else), or sell it. That thought had gone through Brian’s mind but I don’t think it had gone through mine.
As I said, our lead Pastor Lonnie has been showing the trailer to people who are interested in renting it. I know he’d talked about getting another hobby before but I never thought it would be real estate! Maybe motorcycle riding or something but definitely not real estate! 😉 Anyways, he has been trying to communicate with us and we’ve been going back and forth with the property manager. It’s starting to be a dead end because we can’t get an answer to give an answer.
Our nights lately have been just a little rough as Hannah is waking up a few times (we think she is trying to crawl but then wakes herself and starts to cry). So I wake up multiples times and when I would last night, I would think about selling the trailer and my heart would just drop. This trailer is the only place that I finally felt at home. 4 1/2 years of marriage and we’ve moved 5 times.
(I feel like this might be a longer post than I’d like so I’m not going to really discuss the details).
When we first got married, we had stayed at the crash pad that he rented from another flight attendant. It wasn’t the ideal place for a newlywed to live. So we moved!
Second place was an apartment. There were a few details to why I never felt at home there. But we ended up moving out because of some unhealthy issues that the landlord didn’t fix properly.
Third place was a house that we owned in Columbus. That house was definitely a fixer upper!
Because place 3 was a fixer upper, we got a generous offer from new friends to live with them until we got the house problem fixed. So place four ended up being a 2 year, almost 3 year living arrangement. While both families have wonderful stories about those almost past 3 years, we also now understand why multiple families weren’t mean to live with each other! 🙂 (By the way, it’s hard to be away from them so it clearly wasn’t that bad!)
After selling place 3 and knowing that we had a baby on the way, we needed a place of our own. We then found place five, the trailer!
It was perfect for us! Not too big, not too small. We owned it. We could be a family with our animals without having restrictions and it was out in the country area. In two months we’d welcome our little baby and we figured we’d just get settled in for a while (because we still felt that God was going to have us serve in Japan). Then we got the surprise that we would be leaving for Fukui, Japan in June. So we only lived there for 8 months. We wanted and still want to have it rented out while we are here. Then when we come back (whenever the Lord will) we have something to come back to.
Please be in prayer with us as we make this decision. As far as we’re concerned, we aren’t making the decision quickly.
All I know is that I wanted to feel at home. We found the place. Had to temporarily leave the place. During temporary leave, we may have to sell the place.
It makes me think of how we are to be pilgrims while here on earth. Be ready to pick up your life and move to where God leads you. I remember as we were on the plane ready to leave Columbus, I was crying because it was then just hitting me that we were leaving our dog. I told Brian and he said “We could turn back now and stay”. I’m sure he knew that I wouldn’t have us turn around. But my response was “If we go back now, we’ll suffer the horrible heartache because we didn’t follow God’s command. Then if we were to get right with God, follow His command and then actually do what we need to, we’ll have to go through the heartache of leaving too. So I’d rather just go through the heartache once.”
There is a message that I feel is powerful. It’s called “Going to Hell Unnoticed”. Here is the video. I’d highly recommend that you listen to it.
While we’re here in Japan, we need to give up any and every thing that God desires for us to serve Him and to lighten the load of others taking care of things back home so that we (by the way, we’re no one special. Just because we have hope, the Hope! Doesn’t mean we’re better than anyone) can spread the Gospel so people don’t go to Hell unnoticed. So that God can be glorifed and honored to people who haven’t even heard about Him and His Son.
Yes, it hurts thinking about giving up “home”. BUT if giving up “home” means that someone or people can have an eternal future in Heaven then it would be worth it all!