I blogged some of my thoughts, the sender. Here are some of Renee's thoughts, the goer.
Renee’s first blog
June 4th, 2006
It’s my turn, I suppose. To blog, that is. Bernie has been doing it for a while, Jonathan has his own page of the website and now that Cori has posted a blog, I don’t want to be the holdout. Unless, of course, it involves vulnerable sleeping conditions and situations where I have toilet paper in one hand and a small shovel in another.
There have been times over the past month when I have also seemed to be the emotional holdout as well. I have walked unaffected through one emotional situation after another these days. Some of you may have been concerned and some even hurt or offended. I hope not, because the lack of tears has by no means been a reflection of the degree to which I will miss family, friends, co-laborers.
Just as the trains that pass outside our new little apartment for one month here at Wheaton run on one track, so it seems does my mind and my emotions. I have been singly intent on one thing – dealing with our belongings. Even when taking a break for things like District Conference, homegroups, special services or visiting with friends and family, my mind has always been partly on the packing task before me.
It finally hit me, and I use the word hit very deliberately. Wednesday, with the boxes ready to go the Post Office, it hit. Lest I come across as incredibly cold and calloused, it wasn’t the completion of the task or the moving of stuff. On the way back from the Post Office Bernie took our dog, Chip to his new home. It’s a wonderful new home and I am so grateful to God for it, but it’s not our home. He’s not our dog any more. He has a new family to love him, and they already do, but he was not a pet — he was family. As I type it hits me again.
As we worked through the night into the morning, trying to accomplish what has seemed to be impossible, that is emptying our home, I was able to get back on my track. I was relatively successful until the end. I vacuumed Jonathan’s room and turned off the light. As I did, it seemed as if he were there, in his top bunk as he has been every morning for the five years, surrounded by his Titans memorabilia and his weather equipment.
Then I went to Cori’s room, vacuumed it and turned off her light. The big dancing flowers Bernie had painted on her purple wall seemed lonely without her there. I felt like I was in the finale of some long-running TV series, turning off the lights and walking away. I remembered the day after putting the nail on our Christmas tree (most of you know what that means, but if you don’t ask me), Cori crawling into Bernie’s lap in the big chair downstairs and saying she wanted to be a Christian.
I remembered the many nights and often late into the night, singing, praying, fellowshipping, struggling, having exciting conversations and hard conversations with so many of you. While we hope to have many more of those opportunities in the future, they will have to be somewhere else, because I turned that light off too.
Okay, if this is blogging, I may never do this again because this hurts, and I prefer to holdout from hurt. Yet as I type, I remember that though the light to one season in our lives has been turned off, there really is only one Light that counts because it will never be extinguished. His light stepped down into darkness, opened my eyes, let me see… and now it is my privilege to take His light to other eyes, with the expectation that one day, we shall all share in His promise. “And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine one it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it…and night will be no more…for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever (Rev. 21:22-26, 22:5).
And just as the former things are passing from us in this season, so they all will in this life, but He will wipe every tear from our eyes and there will be no mourning, crying or pain for those who are His.
I’m going to stop here, before it stops being a blog and just becomes a sermon. Ah, now I know why Bernie enjoys this so much
