Balance

How do you find a balance between excitement and sorrow? All week I have been intense in my preparation to go. I have been in prayer, I have been packing, I have been making sure all my paperwork is in order, I have desperately been trying to finish my book so that I don't have to bring it along (it's heavy), I have been spending time with family, and have been full of joy and excitement. But tonight as we were packing up the last of my belongings, we got a difficult phone call. One of the young people in the Church we were part of for most of my life was killed in a violent car accident. She was 17. They don't know how it happened, but the car went from air born to on its side, to being hit by a semi. This is the second accident that has killed a young person from our little church of less than 50, the other one was in May.

My prayer has shifted. We must begin to understand that this is not a game we are playing. This is real, what we are doing, where we go, who we are with and what we say are all "for keeps". I am grieving for my friends, and their family. And yet, I am still boarding a plane tomorrow to start the adventure that I have been planning for. Only Jesus can bring us the peace that we need to go on and do what we must do while there are people that we love who are suffering. I had written a blog earlier today called "Getting Ready" and it was all about the inner peace that I had acquired as I prepared, but I lost it. That inner peace has been shaken, but I think that the shaking was more getting air bubbles out than a breaking.

So now, I spend the last few hours with my family, I make sure that everything is ready to go, and I pray a new prayer, one that goes deeper in me as well as in Him. I know that it is simply the grace of God that I am where I am, and I know that even as my heart opens to Indonesia, it does not close to my home.