The realization is finally hitting me that we will very soon be on a plane headed to China.  In just a few short days we will arrive in Beijing and begin the teachers training.
I have a lot of concerns for our family. This time I'm going with two children which brings a whole other world of issues I never thought of before as a single.
How will they do on the plane?  How will I entertain them?  How will I not go insane?  How will they cope with jetlag? How will they do with being in a strange place with strange people, language, and food?
As a mom, my tendency to be given to worries and fears is pretty strong!   What can I do?  Well the only thing I can do is release all of those concerns to the One who holds my little ones in His hands.
Phillippians 4:6 is defninetly my theme verse right now. haha
But as I look around me this week, I'm not alone.
Other moms with children who have the same concerns, same worries, same fears.
This morning what a blessing as we gathered together and shared  these same concerns in the form of requests to our Father.
All of us with children of different ages and different personalities all dealing with different issues.  We just want to know- will our children be ok?  Are they going to hate us forever for dragging them to a foreign country? Will they be scarred for life?
One mom said it well. "If we have been called so have our children. Right now this is their calling as well as ours."
In all of this we have to come to the understanding that our children in reality are not our own.  They are His and we are merely stewards of them.  Of course we want to steward them well, but ultimately they are in His hands. We have to surrender them to Him and take comfort in the fact that He loves our children even more than we do and He knows what's best for them.
  My request specifically is that I would have discernment in disciplining my children. I want to have wisdom in knowing how to be sensitive to them during this time of transition but also to know how parent them well. I need to know when to discipline and when to have grace!   
In all of this I realize my own inadequacy, my own depravity and I have this paralizying fear that I'm just not doing it the "right way".   That's when I hear my loving Friend say to me "Just lean into me, Just depend on me for your strength, you can't do it in your own strength, that's why I'm here."  Ahhhhhh!  sweet release! Sweet dependence!   Sweet mercy!   He is enough!  His grace is sufficient and I love him all the more for it!! 


So in conclusion I just want to say, this transition however exciting is hard.  There is a cost, there is struggle, but I keep my eyes on the Prize.  
We say goodbye to all that is familiar to us, our homes, our family, our friends, our favorites shopping places,  restaurants, parks, etc.  
and trade it for the unknown and the unfamiliar.  I'm reminded of His words in Mark 10:29,30
"...No one who has left house, or brothers, or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake....but that he will receive a hundred times as much now .....and in the age to come......"
For Him I live and For Him alone I move.....  May He be praised forever and ever.