Never Alone

From Journal entry on 10/3/2013: We are here.  We have arrived.  Actually, we’ve been here 3 days now.  It was all so emotional leaving EUM after we were showered with love and encouragement.  Then, during the drive, we were so excited to get to our new place and see family along the way.  Once we got to our apartment, I was consumed with getting settled in and getting the kids’ school situations all squared away.  I even went to my first Good Shepherd youth event.  

However, now the vacation is over but it feels like our new life hasn’t started yet.  Our furniture hasn’t arrived, I’m not working right now, and the kids are still at home.  And… I don’t know anyone.  I mean, I’ve met a few people, but I don’t really know them.  I remember similar feelings of the “life in between” when we first moved to Racine, especially when I was left in an apartment that had no air conditioning, while pregnant, as Devin took a group of teenagers to work camp for a week.  We had only been in Racine for a few weeks and I was feeling completely alone and so far away from anyone I really knew.  I’ve come full circle and am experiencing it all again, although NOT pregnant this time, thank goodness!  It’s just hard starting over after building deep and meaningful relationships somewhere else for the last 8 years.  I’m in the “life in between” again.  Not there anymore, but not yet fully here either.  I’m going through similar feelings as before, but there is one major difference this time around: I know God is faithful.  I know He is with me.  I know it because I experienced it fully in those early moments in Wisconsin.  I know He will help me build a new life here too.  He brought us here – He will not abandon us.

So, when I’m struggling to get to know my neighbors after having a close friend living 2 doors down before, when I don’t have anyone here to quickly text for lunch when it was so easy before, or when it’s a challenge to start conversations with teens who don’t know me after having 8 years of inside jokes and students who knew me deeply, I will trust God to help me move forward one step at a time.  No matter how alone I might feel in a moment, I am NEVER alone.  God is always with me.