Dear Friends and Family,
The day has come. I've felt like I could hear this distant call of a train coming for a while now and honestly have prayed that every day between me and tomorrow morning would stretch out so that I would have more time with the people I love. I am super excited about what is to come and anxious and overwhelmed and totally frustrated with the fact that, try as I might, I can't bring myself to get rid of a single thing in my too heavy pack. Oh, well.
Before I leave I wanted to tell each of you how much your thoughts, prayers, gifts, conversations, lunches and dinner invites, hugs and laughter has meant to me. Thank you to everyone who came to my good-bye party. Even in getting ready to leave, I have realized how much more the people in my life matter to me than my to-do lists and own sense of urgency to run my life like a tight ship. It's been great training for me to leave my stuff scattered on the floor so that I could meet a friend for dinner, and know for certain that all that stuff doesn't matter nearly as much the relationships I have with my family and my friends. I hope each of you knows how much you mean to me.
Getting ready to leave has also made me realize how much more Christ sacrificed for me than what I often acknowledge. As I have dreaded tomorrow, counting days on my fingers while worrying about all of the unknowns coming over the next year, my soul keeps thinking about how Christ must have dreaded the cross. What a terrible distant train whistle to hear growing louder and louder. I feel that in a very small way I can better understand the garden, the sweat that was blood, the asking of the cup of the cross to pass by. What Christ did on the cross was costly, and its sacrifice began far earlier than I usually consider costly. It began with leaving a perfect home to live in a world full of suffering and taking part in that suffering by choice, knowing full well the cost and the angst that was coming. And He did it. I have shed almost no tears while saying good-bye and packing up my life, but today when I was telling a friend about learning these things, tears came. In the tiniest way I understand and can identify with the dread Christ must have felt as every day was one day closer to the cross and death. My heart feels tender towards knowing this part of His humanity and amazed that He held fast to the plan. My heart is also resting in the truth that His divinity overcame fear and dread to do what had to happen in order that we might be saved and the same power that lived in Him lives in me. I am trusting in that truth tonight.
Carrie
