Georgia on My Mind: Reflections on the Last Year and a Half

Once again, I find myself so far behind on updates on this blog. This time around I’m blaming it on the holidays and all of the Christmas projects I took on and the time devoted to those these last couple of months. I have the coming posts drafted and hope to be up-to-date soon, but I’m going to take a moment first to share this post which has been in the works for the last several months. Given that it’s New Year’s and the reflection and introspection that comes along with it, I’m letting my guard down and giving you a rare glimpse into my heart. I honestly haven’t shared much of this with anyone other than a few close friends in the last year and a half, but I know many of you have been faithful to pray for me and ask me how I’ve been doing, and you genuinely care and deserve more than the “I’m fine” answer you were given. As part of my reflection, I looked over what I had initially written when I got the blog up and running again.

“For you there are no good days anymore, there are no bad days, only days of grace. And some days the grace of God allows you to enjoy what is happening, and some days the grace of God allows you to endure what is happening.”

This quote is from a sermon a friend shared with us shortly after we moved to Atlanta. At the time, it seemed to describe our lives perfectly, and now that we're in the midst of another huge life change and transition, I'm sure we'll be referring to it often in the days ahead.

I'm confident though, the vast majority of those days will be ones we enjoy with only a few here and there in which to endure."

As predicted, the majority of the days that make up the last year and a half have been days that I’ve enjoyed, as you’ve seen evidenced in the blog posts I’ve done. As also anticipated, there were some days where I had to endure what was happening, which I’m sharing with you now.

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I have an obsession with the passage of time. I can’t explain it – I don’t understand it. It’s always been there. In years past, you could ask me what I was doing on any given day in the past, and in an instant, I could tell you where I was, who I was with, and what all had taken place. Though my friends liked to test my knowledge and thought me to be a bit freakish, I prided myself with such an ability and the memories it brought about. I’ve lost my touch over time and nowadays it takes me a little longer to recall, and sadly, sometimes I’m at a loss.

For the days we will always remember, we refer to them as “days that will live in infamy”. You know the ones that resonate with everyone – September 11^th, the Kennedy assassination, Pearl Harbor, the Challenger explosion, for those in New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina. Each year the anniversaries of these days are remembered and rarely forgotten. These are collective examples, but what about personal ones? Your birthday, the day you lost a loved one, the day your child was born, your wedding day (okay, there are too many jokes about forgetting anniversaries, but it’s one that should be remembered!)

These are all on my perpetual calendar of days I will forever remember. I added one more to the list earlier this year – May 31^st. You see, May 31^st, 2011, was my last day of work at the North American Mission Board, the day I packed up the last of my things, and the day I moved back to Tennessee. I can honestly say I didn’t see it coming, but the instant I woke up on May 31^st this year I was confronted with a looming cloud encompassed with a surreal feeling of somberness. A gorgeous and perfect day outside, yet it carried a weightedness with it as I found myself asking, “Has it really been a whole year?”

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Can I just share something? Contrary to popular belief, I did not want to move back to Dayton. Yes, it is my hometown and where I grew up and my family is here, but I didn’t want to come back. You’ll find many kids growing up here have one goal in life – to leave and never come back. Can I share something else? Contrary to popular belief, I was never one of those kids. I loved growing up in a small rural town, loved the community, loved that everyone knew everyone else, loved the simplicity of life - loved all that it entailed. During my senior year of high school, I distinctly remember the majority of my friends counting down the days until they moved away and into their college dorms while I wished things could stay the same and high school could last forever. In hindsight, I realized how naïve it was 12 years later following four years on my own away at college and another eight living in Atlanta.

My 18 year old self never would have believed it had you told me, but I loved everything about college and then subsequently, I loved everything about Atlanta. Yes everything, because if I’m being honest, I think I even loved the traffic. What compelling reason did I have to move back to Dayton? For me, I had none. For David, he had every reason in the world. He had almost reached a breaking point with his frustrations of living in Atlanta – the traffic, his work situation, the crazy pace of life. He was beyond ready to start fresh in a place he knew he loved and wanted to retire to one day. For my family, their first grandson/great-grandson/nephew/great-nephew would be closer to them and they’d be able to see him more often than had we been in Atlanta. I had the feeling this was a win-win move for everyone but me as they all had something to gain, and I felt as if I had everything to lose.

I admit it was pure selfishness, and I’m not sure how it reared its ugly head because just a few weeks earlier I had seen David at his desperation point and knew it was time to quit thinking about myself. Not only did I have him to consider, I had just found out I was pregnant, and now had a little one to consider in the grand scheme of things. In the time we had been married and even prior, all David had ever wanted was to get his Ph.D. and get a job where he could support his family. With our family growing and his current job situation getting worse, I knew this was more crucial for him now than ever. Have you ever been told to be careful what you pray for, that God just might answer you? Well, I had and thought I knew what I was asking, but in an act of pure selflessness at the time, I began praying that God would grant David the desires of his heart, whatever it meant and wherever it took us. Little did I know…

Prior to May 2011, if you had asked me what the hardest thing was I’d ever had to do in my life I would have responded by saying, “Turning in my dental school rejection letter to go and work at NAMB”. Isn’t it ironic? The hardest thing I’ve had to do since then was turning in my NAMB resignation letter in order to move back to Dayton.

All of the life change and what’s happened in the last couple of years wasn’t the first time I’ve had to step out in faith and trust that God had a better plan than the one I had for myself. David and I had already walked down that road together and knew without a doubt this was what we were supposed to do. We referenced our move to Atlanta more times than I care to remember in the midst of our move to Tennessee. However, we also referenced God’s faithfulness to us and knew He would see us through yet again. Did it make it any easier? Some, but this life change and transition brought with it plenty of struggles and trials of its own.

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On March 1^st of this year, Michael Kelley’s new book, Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal was released. Michael works at LifeWay, and I had the privilege of meeting and working with him on a couple different occasions, as well as hear him speak at a couple of collegiate conferences I attended. More than once during those speaking engagements he shared stories of his young son who had been diagnosed with leukemia. Having been encouraged by the things he shared, I was anxious to read the book he had written which chronicled their family’s journey in regards to their son’s cancer. Suffice it to say, I figured I would just be reading through his testimony and not be able to apply anything to my life as my son was healthy and doing well at the time. What I failed to anticipate was the book was not just a collection of some stories and their experiences. Instead, it also included a tough, hard look into their faith and walk with God through the midst of life-altering change and questioning why God had called them to walk down this road. Again, totally different scenario, but God used countless things He had taught Michael to help me make sense of the things I was dealing with in regards to all of the life change and crisis of belief I was experiencing. Needless to say, it was a breath of fresh air that helped me make great strides and gave me a new outlook.

In a section of the book entitled, “Good-bye Dreams”, Michael writes:

“We often think about the grieving process exclusively in terms of people. You lose someone close to you, and you lament that loss in personal and profound ways. But the same process happens, I believe, to other areas of life, too --- like the moment you realize you’re never going to be a doctor. When you first know that you can’t have children naturally. When you realize you may never meet the right person and get married. You grieve what your life was “supposed” to be as you try to adjust to how your life is. You have a great sense of loss and sorrow, and that sense of loss can be compounded by guilt because you know you have plenty to be thankful for. Dreams can be grieved over much the same way people can, especially if that dream is the source of your self-definition. In the end grieving is about loss and finding your way through life without that thing that’s not there anymore.”

If there is anything that can be said to describe what I’ve dealt with these last 19 months, this is it – he nailed it dead on. I had this idea of what my life was supposed to be like – living in our relatively new home in Alpharetta, adjusting to life as a new mom, continuing my work with student missionaries at NAMB, etc. I have had to grieve what my life was supposed to be like as I’ve tried to adjust to how my life is – living in a home we’re renting from family near Dayton, adjusting to life as a new mom, giving up my work with student missionaries and being a stay-at-home mom, etc. I did have a great sense of loss and sorrow, and again, his words resonated with me – that sense of loss was compounded with guilt because I knew I had plenty to be thankful for. David had an incredible new job he loved, I had a house to live in, I had a beautiful, healthy, newborn son with family close by to love on and help me raise him, and I had the opportunity to stay home with my baby and not have to work, amidst a million other things to be grateful for. To say I felt guilty over wishing for the way things were when I had so much to be thankful for is a huge understatement. Some days the guilt was so heavy, it was literally crippling. How dare I wish this newfound life away when on the outside it seemed so perfect and ideal to everyone else! In all actuality, I did have a perfect life some people would have given anything to have - but it’s not the life I had planned for myself…how do you make anyone else understand that when you can’t even come to terms with it yourself? The inner battle raged on the days I struggled to endure – is it even possible to be so grateful yet so ungrateful at the same time?

In the midst of all the changes, the one I’ve struggled with the most has been no longer working at NAMB. Being a new mom - I absolutely love and wouldn't trade it for anything. Being in a new house - in time it began to feel more and more like home. However, there is a void when it comes to being around students that has left me feeling so empty in spite of all I do have. I think largely in part it has to do with the calling God gave me to work with them in the first place and the huge leap of faith it took for me to turn down dental school and follow that calling, which I’ve already referenced. That alone would be enough to give me a huge sense of loss, but it’s been compounded by the fact that I’ve allowed myself to feel that being a stay-at-home mom has been my replacement for that. In a way it has, but the comparisons I’ve made and the resentment I’ve allowed to build towards God and at times, my son, has been uncalled for and one of the hardest things to overcome and only made me miss working with students all the more when it certainly shouldn’t have been the case. I lamented and felt as if:

• I went from reading student missionary reports to reading board books.
• I went from talking in a professional phone voice to talking in baby talk babble.
• I went from calculating student statistics on gospel presentations and professions of faith to calculating baby statistics on how many wet diapers he’d had and how long it had been since he had eaten.
• I went from my suits and dress pants to t-shirts and sweat pants.
• I went from traveling all over North America to staying at and close to home.
• I went from seeing the immediate fruit of my labor to not really seeing it at all.
• I went from nurturing hundreds of students to nurturing only one person.
• I went from feeling like I was changing the world to simply changing diapers.

It’s ridiculous to make such comparisons, I know. I think it can ultimately be summed up as I went from knowing the work I was doing inside and out to not having a clue as to how to take care of a baby. Fortunately, motherly instinct kicked in, and by God’s grace I feel like I am doing just as good a job as a mother as I did as a student missionary mobilizer. I’ve also learned when you’re unsure of yourself and what you’re doing, God uses that uncertainty to cause you to rely more on Him and draw closer to Him as you work your way through it convinced you can’t do it in your own knowledge and strength, which is what I’ve had to do.

Some of my biggest frustrations and fears about leaving NAMB and Atlanta and being a stay-at-home mom in Tennessee were that:

• I wasn’t going to be able to raise my family in the home we'd established.
• I wasn’t going to have much influence anymore.
• I wasn’t going to be able to mentor and nurture.
• I wasn’t going to have close friends to turn to.
• I wasn’t going to be able to fulfill my calling.
• I wasn’t going to be able to see God at work.

I don’t even need to tell you that I’ve since learned I still am able to do all those things here and now. Yes, they may be in a different way than I had thought, but each still hold true and for that I’m grateful.

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Another portion of Michael’s book that resonated with me dealt with what he called “sense of loss” moments. The example he shared was when his son had his first baseball practice and how painstakingly obvious it was that he was not at the caliber of the other boys his age due to his illness and how radically different his experience at playing baseball was going to be compared to theirs. Michael has a breakdown with his son on the way home from the ball field following his first practice and later goes on to share:

“ ‘Daddy?’

  ‘Yes, son.’

  ‘I’m the worst ball player ever.’

And the dam broke. Tears flooded his eyes. And they flooded mine too. I knew that there was nothing I could possibly say to make up for the disappointment of the moment. He wanted to be good so badly, and yet it was physically impossible for him. I didn’t know what to say so I grabbed my son and held him tightly…

…in that moment I was not pensive. I didn’t reflect on everything the Lord had taught us through the past couple of years. Instead, I felt an overwhelming sense of loss. Loss of innocence for me and for Joshua. Loss of the simple pleasure of hitting a baseball and being good at it. Loss of the enjoyment of little moments…

…it’s weird how that sense of loss overtakes you at the most unexpected times. You feel like you have regained a sense of equilibrium, that life is a bit more normal, and then you go to a baseball practice. Or the holidays roll around. Or you hear a song. Or you smell a smell. And suddenly, in that moment when you least expect it, you are overcome with how radically different life is. And how much you have indeed lost. That’s not to say we didn’t appreciate and recognize all we had gained…but the sweetness of the gain was tempered with the bitterness of loss.”

I’ve experienced these “sense of loss” moments that Michael talks about not only in the past year and a half, but many times in my life. As it relates to loved ones, I’ll never forget the first vacation we took shortly after my grandfather passed away. There were two things he loved – reading the newspaper and collecting coins. It was a given that anytime we were on vacation and it came time to buy souvenirs, we were going to get Pap-Paw a newspaper from the city we were in, and if traveling internationally, we set aside some of our money to not convert back over to U.S. dollars so we could take him some currency from the country we were visiting to add to his collection. The trip we took to Cancun only a couple of weeks after he passed away at one point had me laughing and carefree, only to be found fighting back tears seconds later as I spotted a newspaper stand and was overcome with the realization I couldn’t buy one to take home to him. Needless to say, the same thing happened right before we headed home when exchanging our currency.

I tend to refer to those “sense of loss” moments as triggers because that’s simply what they are. You are going along just fine with your head held high thinking all is well and life is grand, and boom – you’re blindsided and swallowed up in a flood of emotion, with sadness and longing coming on so strong they make you sick to your stomach. I’ve had several triggers bombard me within this last year and a half, and the thing about triggers is, they come in the most unsuspecting and bizarre ways in which you’d have never dreamed those particular circumstances could evoke such feelings within you. For instance:

• On Sunday, September 11^th, 2011, I was at church, and during the morning service they showed the Southern Baptist Disaster Relief video commemorating the attacks on the Twin Towers and the relief efforts at the time, as well as the continued ministry since in New York City. As others held back tears in remembrance of the terrorist attacks, my eyes were welling up for the people I knew and recognized in the video, which was produced by NAMB, the missionaries I cared about and worked with who were serving in New York City, and for Disaster Relief as a whole.

• I had the opportunity to see a sneak preview of the movie, Courageous, at NAMB a couple of months before I left. David and I didn’t have the chance to go see it in a theater, but bought the DVD as soon as it came out. When we sat down to watch it one evening, in one of the opening scenes the new police officer joining the force said a line about how he had just moved from Atlanta because he wanted a slower pace of life for his family. I burst into tears. Really? Like I said, I had already seen the movie before and was prepared with my box of tissues for what I knew was to come, but certainly hadn’t planned on crying in the first five minutes over such a line.

• There was also another movie that caught me completely off guard, Life As We Know It. This was the one about the couple who were given joint guardianship over a little girl after her parents were killed. I assumed it would be a good movie for David and me to watch since they were adjusting to life with a new baby, and it seemed there were some comedic moments from the previews. I was right about the movie and would have enjoyed watching it, had it not been set in Atlanta, which I was unaware of! The entire movie I just kept seeing sights and hearing references to things in and around Atlanta, and it just made me so homesick. To be honest, my heart ached while watching this young family adjusting to life together with a little one in the suburbs of Atlanta, and I found myself insanely jealous of fictional characters in a movie simply because this was the way I felt my life should have been. 

• Another unsuspecting trigger happened when David and I went to one of Tennessee’s football games last fall. This was our first major outing/date together since Anthony was born. For those of you who know me, you know how much I love Tennessee football, and I had the best time. Following the game, we went to the Zaxby’s on campus and decided to eat there while we let traffic clear out. The entire restaurant was filled with college students, and I’m pretty sure David and I were the oldest ones in there. I found myself watching them and listening in on their conversations and just observing them in their own environment and element. My heart longed to be interacting with students again, and it never fails to stir up these feelings in me every time I step on a college campus.

• David and I also went to a Rhea County High School football game last fall, just the two of us. As we were walking in, I was reminiscing about my days as a high school student there, and we were talking about what it would be like when Anthony was in high school and if he’d be there and play football or another sport and what activities he’d be involved in. Again, just going along fine and dandy until we sat down to watch the game. It immediately felt like every other game I’d been to since graduating in the fact that I had just arrived into town for the weekend and would be heading back on Sunday. Only this time, this was home, and it was just down the road.

• A similar thing would happen to me on Sundays. The weekly ritual is always church and then lunch at Mam-Maw’s house. Normally on a weekend visit, after leaving Mam-Maw’s I’d get in my car and be heading home to Atlanta. Again, this time, I was getting in my car to head home, only it was just a few miles away. There have been some Sundays I so badly wanted to just keep driving and go all the way to Atlanta. Honestly, Sundays in general were (and still are) sometimes hard on me. For one, that’s where I had the most interaction with people who would ask me how I was doing and how I was enjoying living back in Tennessee. Those conversations alone got to me sometimes, but just being at church and in the presence of God and during worship…I can’t even tell you how many times I got emotional over songs that were sung, words that were spoken, things related to mission work that came up…these still tug at my heart more than anything on any given Sunday, and you never know what it’s going to be.

• This may be silly, but radio stations were triggers for me at times. If I heard a particular song or if I got overly frustrated at the lack of good songs or something on the radio, I would miss the Atlanta radio stations so bad I couldn’t stand it. Confession: I left the station settings in my car on Atlanta ones for months before switching them over to Chattanooga and Knoxville stations. Thankfully though, I’ve downloaded what apps I can for the Atlanta stations and have come up with a solution for still being able to listen to them when I feel the need to.

• This may also be silly, but sometimes the weather forecasts would get to me too. We get Chattanooga TV stations where we are, and I’d be watching the news going along just fine. Then, the weather would come on, and they’d show the forecast for Chattanooga and North Georgia and sometimes would span out enough to show Metro Atlanta, and my heart would sink.

• Other triggers for me that have been completely random and uncontrollable are when I’m out and about and see people that I think I recognize from either NAMB or elsewhere in Atlanta. If I’m in a restaurant or store or some other place, for a second, I think I’m actually in Atlanta and it might be them, but then I realize, “No, wait, I’m in Tennessee – what would they be doing here?” I’ve been so homesick for Atlanta and certain people way too often, especially in the middle of Wal-Mart.

Again, some of these things may seem lighthearted, and oftentimes they are, and I’ll just smile to myself over them. Others though have caused me to stop dead in my tracks and burst into tears they’ve caught me so off-guard. It just seemed that initially everywhere I turned something was in some way serving as a reminder as to where I was now and the life I had lost, and the pain was just too much to bear at times.

As more and more time goes by, the triggers have become less and less, and I’m sure that will continue to be the case. However, I know they’ll never completely go away, and as is their nature, they’ll hit at the most inopportune time when I am least expecting it. It even happened as recently as this past Sunday night when I met up with my closest friends from high school for our annual holiday get-together. While listening to their updates from this past year and then vice versa, I found myself so badly wanting to share with them about the things going on at NAMB and in Atlanta as I had done in so many years past, and alas, I couldn’t. I’ve come to the realization that the overwhelming “sense of loss” is still there at times over a year and a half later.

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As of tomorrow, December 31^st, 2012, it will have been 19 months since my last day at NAMB. So much has happened in the time since and all have been days filled with grace to get me through. As I presumed, there have been many days that I’ve enjoyed what was happening and only a handful where I’ve had to endure what was happening. During the times when I was especially struggling, it never failed that God would reveal another piece of His plan in all of this through certain circumstances to encourage me and assure me I am right where I need to be and in His perfect will for my life.

I boxed up all of my things from my office at NAMB on that last day and have them in our basement here. Although I’ve gone through everything we moved from Atlanta, I have yet to sort through those boxes. One of these days I will, but one thing did catch my eye recently in the top of one of them. It was a picture that I was given not long after starting my work there. It shows four different photos of NAMB – one for each season, and you can see the new flowers, green trees, colorful autumn leaves, and snow. Below those photos is the verse from Ecclesiastes 3:1 – “For everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.”

I’ve begun to realize and accept that despite what I had originally hoped, my time at NAMB and in Atlanta was only for a season, and I’m now in a new season of life. Like I said before, this transition hasn’t been the easiest for me, but has gotten more and more so as time goes by. At this point I have far more days where I enjoy what is happening here whether it be precious moments with Anthony, with family, with old and new friends alike, or just simply enjoying the beauty of all East Tennessee has to offer, and I seldom even think about or miss things in Atlanta. Of course, there are still some things I miss occasionally, and when it gets to be too much, thankfully we are still close enough to Atlanta that David, Anthony, and I just head down for the weekend to visit at NAMB, visit with other friends, eat at our favorite restaurants, and visit our other favorite places, and we’re able to “get our fix.”

I can’t believe it’s been 19 months since I’ve been gone, and like I said, there are still things I miss even now at times. However, I also can’t believe we’ve been here for 19 months and that Anthony is 18 months old. Moving forward and in this upcoming New Year, there are definitely things I don’t want to miss out on here in Tennessee especially as it pertains to my relationships with my son, my husband, my family, and my friends. Time is just going by so quickly and will only continue to march faster and faster as it is fleeting away unless I make a conscious effort to make the most of and learn from that which I’m given.

Am I a different person than I was 19 months ago? Yes.

Am I a stronger person than I was 19 months ago? For sure.

Have I grown as a person in the last 19 months? Of course.

Will I be a different person 19 months from now? Inevitably.

Will I be an even stronger person 19 months from now? No doubt.

Will I continue to grow as a person in the next 19 months? I hope so.

Ultimately, only time will tell.