It was somewhere in the first few hours of K Squad’s flight from Chicago to Malaysia where it finally hit me. I’m going to be gone for 11 months. Away from home, away from my family, away from the city of Austin and my church, the Stone, and away from my fiancée, Michelle. Up until this point I’ve been rather nonchalant about the whole absence aspect of this journey, but in reality, there’s a lot that I’m going to miss out on. Or at least, there’s a lot that I’m going to miss. This flight from Chicago to Hong Kong (then a connection to Malaysia) is proving somewhat transformational for me, even if only on a very minute scale. I was thinking about what I’m doing on a plane with a bunch of foreigners headed to the other side of the world when it hit me only a moment later; I’m the foreigner now! When the true context of my environment began to settle in my mind, I began to realize why my parents and Michelle had become emotional upon our departure and during our final conversations. For whatever reason it just hit me much later. Is this some sort of mechanism that God has wired into my brain to encourage me to trek this path?
Whatever the reason may be, I’m on a plane now, headed to a place far away from my fiancée, for almost a year. The magnitude of my absence just fell on me with the weight of the plane itself. So how am I going to cope with this? Turn around? No. I think I’ll press on. I may cry at some point (or at several points) but I will continue this journey of refinement and spiritual development and Kingdom service. Fortunately I know that I have lots of love bundled up for me back home, speaking encouragement over the invisible miles that separate us. Additionally I have a ring. Not a wedding ring, and not an engagement ring, but it is a ring associated with my engagement to Michelle. She’s had this James Avery piece for years and years that she wore on her left ring finger, and when I proposed to her, I removed that ring and replaced it with our engagement ring. I now wear her old ring around my neck, and I sense that staring at it and handling it will allow me to muster up the endurance that I’ll need to remember that my love will be waiting patiently with open arms for my return in 11 months. That paired with continual encouragement from team members and the Word of God means I have nothing to fret about.
So was this blog post just me being an emotional whiney baby? Maybe. But that’s okay. If I’m lucky enough to have you following my posts, then I’m sure you won’t mind hearing about what’s going on in my mind and heart; hopefully it’ll allow you to pray for exactly what I need. Thanks 🙂
