This evening the four Kenya Myhres will board an airplane for Dulles Airport in Virginia. We will reach our 20-year-milestone of Africa service this year. And for all those 20 years, 118 Lake Drive in Sterling has remained our stateside home base. This was my home through half my childhood, and my mom has lived there for 40 years. We have fled there with practically nothing (a cardboard box tied with string of the hand-me-downs given after a war drove us out). We have celebrated births (Julia's) and mourned deaths (my Dad's) within those walls, concocted meals on that screened porch, squeezed cousins and kids into those beds, watched slides, decorated for Christmas, played ping-pong, read and worked on those tables. It's only a ten minute drive from Dulles, an easy place to access from overseas, and less than half an hour from the church to which we all belong and which remains our stalwart of support.
But this home has become too much for my mom to manage alone, and without us nearby to help her, she has decided to sell and move nearer to my sister in Charlotte.
So this tacking-point of stability is about to be pulled out. I'm sure we won't even realize how much we counted on 118 Lake Drive as a foundation until it is gone.
As a final moment of grace, God allowed Caleb's Spring break to overlap with my sisters' kids vacation, with Easter weekend, and with my mom's plan to put her house on the market, so we will all converge to reminisce and clean and pack and sort and throw away. And to celebrate Easter together, a rare event.
We personally have WAY TOO MUCH accumulated detritus of decades, shoes we thought we'd need again, sweaters, photos, the kind of thing that is not practical to pack in a suitcase for Africa but also hard to toss, tucked under beds and in the tops of closets or boxed in the basement.
So pray for wisdom in what to do with things. Courage to let go. The right balance of sentiment and practicality. Sensitivity to each other. Sheer determination to get it done. We so rarely help my mom with much of anything we'd like these two weeks to be a blessing to her.
Another step in the journey of being at home all places and no place, of longing for eternity, of finding a balance between modeling the heavenly mansion and yet being willing to let go of any claim to such security on earth.
But this home has become too much for my mom to manage alone, and without us nearby to help her, she has decided to sell and move nearer to my sister in Charlotte.
So this tacking-point of stability is about to be pulled out. I'm sure we won't even realize how much we counted on 118 Lake Drive as a foundation until it is gone.
As a final moment of grace, God allowed Caleb's Spring break to overlap with my sisters' kids vacation, with Easter weekend, and with my mom's plan to put her house on the market, so we will all converge to reminisce and clean and pack and sort and throw away. And to celebrate Easter together, a rare event.
We personally have WAY TOO MUCH accumulated detritus of decades, shoes we thought we'd need again, sweaters, photos, the kind of thing that is not practical to pack in a suitcase for Africa but also hard to toss, tucked under beds and in the tops of closets or boxed in the basement.
So pray for wisdom in what to do with things. Courage to let go. The right balance of sentiment and practicality. Sensitivity to each other. Sheer determination to get it done. We so rarely help my mom with much of anything we'd like these two weeks to be a blessing to her.
Another step in the journey of being at home all places and no place, of longing for eternity, of finding a balance between modeling the heavenly mansion and yet being willing to let go of any claim to such security on earth.
1 comment:
So sad for your family and Judy. Hope it all goes well remembering the good times.
Post a Comment