Good-Bye to the Action Packers

Those action packers have been sitting around for a while, always stacked against a wall or staring at me from a corner.

Somehow they seemed to capture the last several years of life.  The packing.  The moving.  The transitions.  I've joked that you have to have action packers to be a "real" missionary.  It's not true, of course, but it sure seems like a lot of the missionaries I know (at least the ones living overseas) have them.

Well, as of the other week, mine are gone.  And so is a lot of what they represented.

It seems odd not having them stacked in awkward places, reminding me that I just moved or that I'll be moving (again) soon.  Even though I know I don't need them now, I feel like I should have kept them just in case.

This is such a new chapter for me in so many ways.
Ministry in the States.
Probably a long(er)-term one, or at the very least, an indefinite one.

I keep catching myself.  Whenever I go to buy furniture or hang stuff up on the wall or make plans for next semester, part of me hangs back a little.  I've gotten so used to temporary situations, I'm just a wee bit afraid to settle in too much, to hang pictures up, to call this place home.  What if I just end up moving again?

It's like I'm trying to crane my neck and look around the corner into the future.  Deep down inside, I want some assurance of stability before I let my heart get too attached to this place.  "You know, Lord, it sure would be nice if You let me know if there's another move coming up soon.  I could plan my life so much better that way."

He knows it all, of course - the twists and turns and detours my life will take.  If there is another move in the non-distant future, well, He certainly hasn't given me any indication of that.

And I've slowly started to realize He's revealed exactly what I need to know: that I am here for now, and there is no move that I need to be thinking about or planning for at this point.

Might there be something around the corner that I can't see yet?  Yes.  Yes, there might be.  But it's foolish to live all my todays in fear of someday.  To trudge through life always thinking What if? and Just in case.

Where's the joy in that?

Where's the confidence in a good, big, faithful God?