Family Update: Where in the world is Blake?Blake left today for 3 months: one month each in 3 different countries (with a 2 week visit back home in March.) Kyrgyzstan is first. (Our home for 2 years way back when)
Many of you have asked which of his various hats he'll be wearing this time. The answer: PhD candidate. His goal is legal research in preparation for writing his dissertation. Yesterday we celebrated his passing his doctoral comprehensive exams! (Yes, the day before he left!)
The kids are older now than the last time we were separated for an extended period. Now they're 8, 7 and 5. Will it be just a tiny bit easier now that they're in school all day? Ask me in April! (-;
There's just one other thing I want to record here. When I asked God to speak to me about this semester, the words he put on my heart were these: "Thrive, don't just survive." [I've heard those before when we've been apart. Perhaps I didn't fully learn them the last time....]
So I've been pondering them ever since. Here's where I'm at: "But God, it's so much easier just to survive!! I can do that. I've done it before. I'm pretty good at survival mode. But thriving, Wow! That's raising the bar. My best friend/husband/father of my children just left me with three young kids and a crazy dog...."
"And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way...being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father..."(excerpts from Paul's letter to the Colossians 1:10-11)
Well, I suspect that over the next three months I'm going to need a heavy dose of that same endurance and patience, and that I'll need his power in me if I am going to rise above my circumstances. Now I think I'll start pondering "joy" in the midst of difficulty.
Posts
