Jun 29, 2011 | The Good Word
We did it. And the Lord did amazing things to orchestrate it all and make it less than impossibly hectic. Almost without a hitch, the bit of worldly goods we saw fit to send across an ocean took off yesterday. Eighteen boxes labelled “Mrs. C. COLLIE” (one Mrs. C. COLIE LIE…I had to giggle) left this lovely place we’ve called home destined for North Carolina, USA.
{In case you’re wondering, they’re labelled to me because I’m the American and he’s the alien.}
I cleared out my clothes closet like I never have before. Friends left with bags and bags. I sent the sweet lady who has helped us with cleaning home with a warm duvet and matching bedding, towels and food. Toys and picture frames and books and even my poor cowboy hat, which was after all a little worse for wear. And doesn’t pack well.
More friends came, and offered to take the rest of the clothes and bedding to charity for us. They divided things out and bagged them up while I greeted a neighbour, toasted two cheese sandwiches, printed a copy of my passport, changed a diaper, swaddled for a nap, and passed out sidewalk chalk and a spray bottle. What a blessing to have help! The day was chaotic but…
It is well with my soul.
As we were preparing for this, the Lord spoke these words to me:
The generous man will be prosperous, and He who waters will himself be watered. {Proverbs 11:25}
So we slashed our prices, gave without abandon and underbid offers on the things we were selling. We already have a couple thousand dollars to show for our efforts and we haven’t sold our couches or Mr. Potato Head yet.
I decided to let go of some very sentimental stuff — and while it tugged at my heartstrings a little, the Lord has met me twice already to confirm it was good and right. He is so good to me.
We’ve been cleared out, and the eighteen boxes, containing those things we didn’t part with, are on their way. Except for the silverware, which I forgot to pull out of the drawer for the movers to pack. Anyone want to buy some silverware?
As I struggled through the process of choosing to let go, and give and give and give, I occasionally felt pangs of discomfort, and sometimes even fear. I realised that it’s a fear we always have when we consider giving anything:
If I give, will I have enough for me, too?
But as I think that aloud, I recognise the absurdity. We’ve hardly bought the Bear a stitch of clothing his entire life, and yet we had a pile of clothing just for him heading back to the US, and stacks and stacks to give away.
Where has my life really been characterised by lack?
Couldn’t I…shouldn’t I be giving more?
Even if those eighteen boxes don’t make it across the sea, I am still confident that my provision and my portion, that comes from the Lord. The lines are falling in pleasant places. And the stuff is exactly that.
It is well, so well, with my soul.
xCC
Jun 28, 2011 | Baby Photos
Just popping in to say hi again!
My Mom and Dad are busy packing and watching the shipping company pack in hopes that none of their wedding china gets broken on this trip.
My brother is busy squealing and giggling and asking everyone “What your favoruh coluh?” and listening to stories about four bears who went on a long trip to Bloemfontein, and then took the plane to see Unky Vaughan in London, and then rode the train to Scotland, and then took the train back to Unky Vaughan…and then rode the airplane to ‘Meruhkuh in Tember. And all their toys went on a bigbigbigbigbigbigbig ship and were there when they got there.
And I’m busy drooling and laughing and reaching out and grabbing and drooling and eating and growing and drooling…and maybe even working on a tooth!
Mom says she’ll write you soon.
Love,
the Tank
Jun 25, 2011 | Prayers in Poetry & Prose
I woke up this morning just happy to be alive. Both boys snuggled into our bed for a few minutes before breakfast; one happy baby had just enjoyed his. We were getting ourselves together to go and visit some friends and meet their new baby girl — a precious two-and-a-half-week-old gift from heaven.
Breakfast and showers and everyone dressed except the little one who can stay in pajamas all day if he likes, I checked my email and peeked at Facebook before our departure. I noticed a few messages in my inbox and decided to go ahead and glance at one of them.
The message was from one of my best friends — a friend who has stood by me and supported me and encouraged me so much throughout these long years on the other side of the Atlantic. She sent love and gifts, calls and prayers to Scotland, and then to South Africa, and I treasure her deeply. We are committed to being witnesses to each other’s lives, and I would be wrong to speak of her friendship without using the word “thankful.”
Her brief message shared the news that the child she and her husband had been expecting was lost. At fifteen weeks, their pregnancy came to an end. I wept, recovered, shared the news with HH and wept some more.
I wanted the world to stop for a moment — for everything to be still and quiet and let me grieve, for a plane ticket to spontaneously arrive so I could go and be with her — to grieve this child I wanted to know and had been mentally planning care packages for.
Moments later, I was assisting the Bear to put on his shoes. I hugged him and asked him for a kiss. He head-butted me in the nose, instead, so hard that I started crying again.
We piled in the car to see our friends and meet the baby, and we noticed a strange thing that has happened once before. Our car was in the shop for a repair, and the mechanics working on it took the CD out of the CD player, found an old CD in the glove box and put it in instead. I’d actually labeled this one “Good Random Mix — Where’d I come from?” at some stage. Today I couldn’t remember what was on it or where it came from.
As the journey to Cape Town continued, I transitioned to the back seat to help the little one fall asleep and entertain the older one with whatever I could find in my purse. Stevie Nicks began to sing Landslide and I listened to the lyrics, my heart stirring with the season of life, so much movement, joy, sorrow, change.
I wandered through the lyrics, wondering what I’ve built my life around. Has some part of me these six years away been built around being away? Am I afraid of going home because I’m not sure I still am who I was when I left? Have these years allowed me to hide? Am I just sad because this season is ending? Though the overwhelming sentiment for my return to the Carolinas is excitement, still too, there is a grieving.
I’m sad to say goodbye to being away. I’m sad to see this adventure come to an end. I don’t want to admit it because it feels wrong for so many reasons. How can I grieve something that was full of challenge? How can I grieve when my prayers have been answered?
The music continues from Enya to James Taylor to Nelly Furtado, and I think about who might’ve given me this CD. And then the Dixie Chicks come on, singing their beautiful rendition of Nick’s Landslide. I listen to the words again.
After meeting the beautiful baby girl — so perfect and tiny and precious — we are on our way home again, and the CD loops to start over. Stevie sings again. The Chicks sing again. I’m lost in my own thoughts about change. Rejoicing with friends rejoicing. Lost in sorrow for my friend’s loss.
I ponder how this life is all a gift — why am I blessed with this wonderful husband while friends of mine raise children on their own? Why am I blessed with these boys and with health, while others lose children or never have them to begin with?
Only two things are completely certain in my mind: the God who never changes, and life, which always will.
It feels like the loss of this child gave me permission to grieve the loss of the now. The loss of a season that you loved and struggled through still hurts, even when you feel ready to move on. With growing children, a growing family, I am eager to be settled. But I don’t want to let go of now.
Somehow it is not about me, or my friend: it is all about Him who always was, in whom and through whom all things are held together.
We’re at home and my four-month-old stirs awake from a cosy nap in his carrier. I pick him up and begin to cry.
Can we do more than take these gifts for granted?
We watch the trees sway in the wind outside and I begin to sing the lyrics from those girls who sang my heart today:
Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?
Well, I’ve been afraid of changing cause I
built my life around you.
But time makes you bolder
children get older, I’m getting older, too.
With prayers for a very dear friend,
xCC
Jun 24, 2011 | The Parenthood
The last time we made a transcontinental move, this little guy
was this little guy.
{First African bath, in the sink of our short-term rental! Age 1}
His previous affinity for suitcases
turned into a feeling more akin to … um…
extreme dislike.
And now that he sees the boxes, the suitcases, and the occasional disappearance of toys…he finds it all a little…unsettling. So please say a little prayer for the little Bear.
He also seems to have picked up a wee cold/runny nose/grumpy attitude/sore throat in this wet and wintry Cape weather. And so have his Mom and Dad. (The Tank seems strong in that department no surprise there…but still a little fussier than usual with a very wee cold.) So perhaps while you’re saying that little Bear prayer, say one for the rest of the Collie Clan, too.
The mountain of laundry {which needs to be climbed before packing} is becoming a molehill. <|: – ) {See the party hat guy?} And the shippers arrive on Tuesday. If I had the time, I could write a bucket-load of sentimentalities about this transition. They’ll probably arrive once we’re over this molehill. My heart wanders just pondering it all…
Blessings and thanks for the encouragement in the meantime!
xCC
Jun 23, 2011 | In the Name of Love
When we dance, he gently leads. He can make a fire in the rain. He starts a conversation out of nothing at a dinner party. He can ride a horse, shoot a gun, and make perfect crepes. And he’s stern and gentle with our boys.
He’s my South African gentleman cowboy hubs.
Four years ago we stirred to the sounds of our own peaceful morning music choices, playing from a laptop nearby. Seagulls called outside our window and the busy streets of Edinburgh bustled below. We eventually settled into a sunny place with a beautiful view of Calton Hill, and it feels like there was enough peacefulness to swim in. We left it for these sunny southern shores two years ago.
This morning we stirred to the sounds of a baby ready for a diaper change. About the time he finished nursing his older brother was awake and ready for Dada to fetch him. He turned over and whispered:
Happy Anniversary. I love you.
We stumbled downstairs in the still-dark early morning, me carrying the bigger one to go and use the potty, him cuddling the little one, so tiny in his strong arms.
I paused for a moment while waiting for the kettle to boil to listen to our music. The Bear, singing his ABC’s and laughing in his high chair, squealing a request to see his baby brother or get down or coffee or cookie or just something. The Baby, cooing and singing as he watches the palm trees sway in the winter winds of the Cape, on this close to shortest day of the year.
We have a week before our address changes again. Change and movement, suitcases and packing seem a chorus in the song of our lives. But love has been the rhythm, the beat, the lyrics, and the reason to sing. We have two beautiful boys, ten thousand photographs, and a lifetime’s worth of memories already.
These four years have been a gift and a blessing. They’ve been full of joy and profound heartache. We’ve laughed until we cried, and cried until we laughed. He’s a reason for me to send thank-you notes to heaven.
To my South African Gentleman Cowboy Hubs,
Happy Anniversary. I love you.
Four years ago, today.
xCC
(If you buy a photo, you’ll really make his day!)
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