dimes and pennies made of plastic roll through our fingers, and while worthless outside of our moments of learning, they are stamped and formed to represent the currency that tucks away in my pockets here.
i hold it in my hands, so similar yet different to the coins back home, and i feel a little bit like lyla when it comes time to pluck them out to count.
learning to look at life all over again.
october found me with my eyes looking north...to the home that used to be and the thanksgiving tables that were overflowing there.
and my heart ached and my table sat bare...unsure how to celebrate, how to incorporate my old traditions in my new space.
there are moments that i feel lost in a no mans land of sorts...that i don't belong there, but i don't belong here yet, either.
which is good, wildly good. something that has a strange and old comfort to it, one that teaches me to laugh at myself as i fumble over words and phrases and coins that are almost the same.
i read her post last night, the thirty-first and the last for the month; the beautifully dear, unexpected friend of my heart.
i cried my way through it and savored each word.
and when i finished? i felt as though i had been released...released from hanging on to dreams and hopes that i desperately tried to hold on to.
she brings me home with each word that she writes, yes. always. but i can be free to live fully here too.
does that sound crazy? maybe a little. and what that has to do with november first is beyond me...
this month is the month of thanksgiving here.
here where He alone placed me.
here where He has already been blessing us abundantly.
here where we are healing and learning to depend on Him in completely new and amazing ways.
it's not easy.
it's not perfect.
but it's here. and it's home.
i have 30 days before me to be thankful for.
and i'm going to use them.
like those coins in my pocket that fill my hands with their differences, i will pick each day out and examine it until i recognize its worth.
day one, though?
it's pretty familiar. worn down my rough edges and melted me into us.
i'm thankful for tony...that here finds me with him, swimming in coffee and lost in his love.
that home is always the here of where he is, because we promised it strong.
i can still hear the voice of his dad, the one who married us and loved us so much, speaking those words that are timeless and true;
do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you.
for where you go, i will go, and where you lodge, i will lodge.
your people shall be my people , and your God, my God. where you die
i will die and there i will be buried. may the Lord do so to me and more
also if anything but death parts me from you.
ruth 1:16-18
i wore white and he wore black and it seemed so easy up on that platform, smiling through words i had heard a thousand times before...
and now? now that what was proclaimed over us is a path i've followed with tears streaming down my face?
i'd do it all again.
i'm found here because it's in God's plan. because He knows what He's doing and He's given relief in such pain by giving me this man..
and i give thanks on this first day of this month that finds me here...with him.
