It seemed all wrong

God was asking me to die to the dreams I’d always embraced—dreams of living close to my kids. 

He was asking me to move half a world away from my daughter, Karen, immediately after she graduated from college. 

He was asking me to move half a world away from my son, Matt, a year out of college, and his wife, Jill, and the grandchild they would surely give Dave and me soon. 

In Chapter 2 of Grandma’s Letters from Africa, I wrote that leaving Matt and Karen hurt more than anything I’d ever experienced. 

A couple of years before we moved to Africa, Dave asked me each day, “Have you filled it out yet?” 

“It” was my application for Wycliffe Bible Translators. I knew Dave wanted a different job. Maybe his current one lacked purpose. Or perhaps he suffered from a mid-life crisis. All his life, he yearned to avoid mediocrity, to break out of the status quo. Probably all those factors led to  his urgent need to serve God in Wycliffe. 

For some reason, though, I couldn’t fill out the application. I tried several times. I placed my pen on the application, but I couldn’t fill in the blanks. 

Finally, I figured out my problem. I didn’t want to apply to Wycliffe. I didn’t want to get rid of our furniture, our treasures, our possessions. 

I didn’t want to dismantle our home. The house I could leave—it needed repairs—but I didn’t want to tear apart what it symbolized—“home.” We had raised our children in it, we had made memories in it. 

I didn’t want to live far away from my mother or Dave’s parents. I didn’t want to say goodbye to friends. 

I didn’t want to leave Port Angeles, with its forests, mountains, and sea. 

I didn’t want to give up the security of employment, income, and health insurance. 

But mostly I didn’t want to leave my children. 

Everything within me cried out that they still needed their parents. I recognized they didn’t need us the way they did when they were little, but I believed they needed our behind-the-scenes support to transition out of college and into the world of professionals. 

Dave didn’t understand my thinking. 

But how could he not feel what I felt? 

Matt and Jill would have each other, but our Karen would be all alone. That just didn’t seem right. In fact, it seemed all wrong. 

But sometimes God works in mysterious ways. Here’s what was going on—dear Chuck Swindoll nailed it: 

“Sometimes people and things can become too important to us. We grip them with closed fists and white knuckles, and God has to pry open our fingers to loosen our hold.” (Abraham: The Friend of God) 

That’s what was going on. And it hurt. Oh, yes, it hurt!