Doing it Afraid 4: When the doing hurts

It’s 4:26am in Los Angeles.
I’ve been “home” just about nine hours.
I can’t sleep, but that’s pretty normal for flying back in this direction.
I haven’t posted recently because the last two weeks have been 100% devoted to packing, shipping, and moving our lives back to the United States from Dublin. And those are just the practicalities.
The practicalities were difficult enough, but the part that hurt – on a fundamental, deep down level – was the saying ‘see you later!’
No one wanted to say ‘goodbye’ because the thought of being away from each other hurt so deeply that we just refused the word.
But at the same time…
Even when we do move back (in whatever time frame that looks like), life there will have changed. Just like we will have changed. Moving home has taught me that more than ever. In the last four years, my husband and I have changed in so many foundational ways. We’ve found healing and wholeness, forgiveness and tenderness, strength and empowerment. And neither one of us wanted to leave. So even though we could have stuck it out in Ireland and hidden ourselves away, we both felt that we were being divinely moved to something different.
It was exciting.
But the doing hurt.
We were afraid and confused. We had really believed that we were supposed to be in Ireland for quite a while, if not forever. We had plans to get our citizenship and create lives there. Yet we both knew we were to come back here for a season. Almost everything we knew and trusted, and the people responsible for our radical life changes, we were choosing to leave them all behind in pursuit of the One who was calling us out.
We don’t have any plans. We don’t know what we’re doing.
We at times are exhilarated, and at other times exhausted.
Getting into our car on Thursday to leave our home was one of the hardest and scariest things I’ve ever done. Because I still don’t know when the pain of leaving is going to stop. I don’t know when – if ever – I am going to stop thinking about the life we chose to leave behind or wondering if we made the right decision.
But I’m going to take each step as it comes. And right now, at 4:37am, I’m going to go ahead and take the time to pray for my friends and family on my favorite little Emerald Isle.
And I’m going to remember that though there’s pain in the night, joy comes in the morning.
With that thought, I’ll give you the song that’s in my heart right now. Enjoy!