A Brief Separation

This morning, my Mom left on a trip to England, Scotland, and Wales. She'll be gone two weeks. While she's gone, Joe and I will have to adjust to managing the house by ourselves, which mostly involves cooking dinners and caring for the pets. It's not going to be difficult work. Pet care is well within my range of skills, and Joe and I each know how to cook a few things. We'll all survive. No, the hard part is purely emotional.

Two weeks can seem like a long time, and while it's exciting that Mom has this wonderful opportunity to go to amazing places that she's always wanted to visit, the house feels different without her, and I know I'm going to miss her after a few days.

I imagine this isn't much different than the separation between us and God. It's not long from an eternal perspective, but it can feel long sometimes. It's a wonderful opportunity, and it's not too terribly difficult most of the time, but the real hard part is the emotional distance. It's hard to feel close to God sometimes. I often find myself missing the peace I feel when I have His spirit with me.

Life can be kinda painful sometimes, but I guess this is our opportunity to man up and tough it out. God's not always going to stand around to hold our hands, and Mom won't always be around either. We each need to learn to be able to stand on our own two feet, emotionally and temporally. Eventually, we'll need to stand on our own two feet spiritually as well, and while I'm not sure not what all that'll include, it comforts me to know that this current separation is temporary, and we're not completely on our own just yet. While this'll definitely be an informative and strengthening experience, I'm glad it's not the new normal yet. I'm grateful that we still have time to figure things out, because, speaking for myself only, I sure have a lot to learn.

The separation, while difficult in some ways, is sure to be a positive experience for all involved. I'm certain that we'll all become wiser, stronger people than we were as a result of this, and some of us may even have fun doing it. I'm glad God saw fit to make this possible, and I pray that He'll help us gain the strength, courage, and capability we're meant to gain by this temporary separation.