Change

The night before we left for Japan
January 9, 2012

When we left for Japan almost two year ago, I was just me.  I was a mama's girl.  I didn't know how to cook anything from scratch.  I was sure that everything I would ever need came from Wal-mart or Target.  I was scared.  I was chubby.  I was American and Texan and pure Southern.  I have changed.  We have changed.  I don't really know when it started.  Maybe on the journey over.  But slowly, we all started to change.  We are not who we once were.  God has been working on our hearts.  He has been shaping us and molding us.  We have seen things.  We have done things.  We have eaten things.  We have spoke a new language.  We have lived a new way. We have simply changed, in every sense of the word.

change - (verb) to make different from what it is or from what it would be if left alone.

I began to notice this change about 6 months after arriving in Japan.  I could tell that I was changing. I could not put my finger on what was wrong.  I was not unhappy, I was just not the same.  My thinking was changing.  My prayers were changing.  What was important to me was changing.  Something had changed.  I didn't even know how to talk about it.  (for me, this was odd!)

 Our family has changed so much.  The kids have grown taller.  We have all lost weight.  We are all so much more active  and healthy than we ever were in America.  The kids have grown so close.  We all have.  We have cried together. We have comforted each other. We have celebrated together-usually language milestones!  We have also worked together.  We have folded and passed out thousands of tracts.  The things we have seen here.  The things we have done here.  The things that at first, were so foreign to us, are now normal.  I dream about the day when I will arrive in America again.  I can almost feel the hugs from my family.  I think of the food I want to eat.  I imagine a day when I can walk through Target and shop.   But then my heart feels heavy.  I have not left Japan, but yet I am already homesick for Japan.  Each morning as I hang my laundry out, I think, "Yup, I am going to miss the smell of sun dried laundry."  As I begin to prepare for dinner I think, "I sure am going to miss eating rice so often."  When I am at the store shopping, I wonder if I will miss the smell of fresh fish.  (I don't even notice it anymore.)  I love who we have become.  I love how we have all grown and changed.  I don't want to lose any of this.  I want our life to stay this way forever.  Simple.

We are preparing to come back to the US on a furlough in 2014.  We will be back for a year.  I have been worried and stressed about going back.  I tried to explain how I was feeling on several occasions to my mom, my sister and Mike.  I never have found the right words to express exactly what I was feeling.  I was supposed to be happy about going back.  And deep down I am happy - thrilled even.  But things have changed.  I read a blog this week that really helped to clear it up for me.  It put into words what I was feeling in my heart.  I am now a triangle!  Wait, what?  I will try to sum up what was said.  I was once a circle.  I lived with circle people and did circle things.  I then moved 6000 miles away to live with the squares.  They do square things.  I had to shape my circle self and try to fit in with the square people.  As hard as I try I will NEVER be a square.  But on the same note, I will never be a circle again either.  I have seen things.  I have done things.  I have eaten things.  I have learned things that have changed me. God has changed me. So now I am a triangle.  I will come back to America in a few months and be a triangle trying to fit in with circles. 

So please be patient with me, with us, as we triangles try to fit back in with the rest of you circles.  It might take us a while to act like we have it all together.  Because really, we never will.  We will forever be triangles.....because we have changed.