It's Enough

I am in Florida. The sun is shining. The water is nearby. I can see palm trees and green. I get on a plane today and go back to South Dakota. I don’t want to go.

I am working very hard to accept the place where God has planted me but the truth is I’d rather stay here. I know my life isn’t in Florida. I actually know my life is not in Nashville full time for now. I believe I will return to Nashville and I look forward to that day, but for now, my life is in South Dakota.

There is a chance of snow in the forecast tomorrow for Brookings. I will leave this sun and beauty for flooding and cold. I will drive twice tomorrow to Sioux Falls because the things I need to do aren’t in Brookings.

I am not sure what South Dakota has for me or what I have to give to South Dakota. I just have to believe, as I return, that this is where God wants me. A dear friend talking about his own living situations said to me that he looks at as if he is a soldier and God has him stationed at a particular place.

I am not crazy about the military metaphors but I guess it fits. I enlisted in the service of my King a long time ago. That means I don’t always get to choose everything about my life. When God opened the doors for my husband to South Dakota, He knew that we were a package deal. This may feel like part of the “worse” in the “for better or worse,” nevertheless that’s what I promised.  I suppose it isn’t the worse. I can think of many things we’ve been through that were a lot worse.

I’ve said a few times that the problem with South Dakota is not the weather. However, today it is. I don’t really want to go back to the cold. I don’t want to go back to loneliness and isolation. But God has a plan, and I have a husband I love. I’ll get on the plane today to the land of snow.

Maybe God doesn’t have anything for me in South Dakota. Certainly there are times I feel like that. But is that important? Is it just about what I do? Or is that I am learning more and more about myself? Is it that I am more in love with my husband than I have ever been? Is it that for the first time in 32 years we have lived alone together? All of those things are special gifts. 

It’s enough.