As many of you know, this morning at 3am we drug ourselves out of bed, and by 4am were on the road to the airport to catch our 6am flight to Austin, Texas. That’s right, Texas! Jeff is attending a ministry conference here called The Verge, so I get to tag along and have a little vacation with Heidi. I’ve been so excited!! It’s been awhile since Jeff and I have gone away without our little monkey, Dutch–and although I miss him like crazy, it is nice to have a little time with Heidi, who usually goes unnoticed because of her rather dominant brother. She is taking to the attention like a fish to water and I’m afraid perhaps she’ll get too used to it and have a rude awakening when we get back home.
So I’ve been preparing for this trip and thinking a lot about being Away from Home, because we’ve been studying through the book of 1 Peter for our women’s Bible study, and Peter’s big idea is that we are all pilgrims and sojourners, away from our true Home in heaven with Christ, on a journey here on earth. It is our temporary home. So this past Monday/Tuesday I taught 1 Peter 2:1-12, and the notes aren’t coherent enough to post here, but if you’d really like to listen you are welcome, I think you can find it here, if you scroll down to Bible study–you can also hear the first two messages as well if you’re so inclined.
But now that I’m actually here, in Texas, after a full day of flights, rental cars, getting lost, unfolding maps that take up the entire front seat, feeding Heidi little bits of french fries like a baby bird in the back seat… now I’m reminded all over again about some of the lessons of being Away from Home.
Everything’s harder. I should have reminded myself that the first day of vacation (which includes travel) is awful. Especially with kids. It’s exciting, but getting up at 3am and not resting again until 7pm is just plain tiring. And although Heidi didn’t cry much on the flights, she never slept a wink–ALL DAY LONG, and was only happy if she was bounced or fed or played with. Which led to one tired mommy. The fun part was that we’re making a surprise video for a certain church staff member, and we had a blast doing that. But by the time this evening rolled around, I put Heidi down to bed at 7 and she cried for 2 hours (overtired, new environment, not real dark), I was so tired I had to ask myself, “Wait, why am I doing this again?” Then Jeff reminded me of my message the day before. I know I know I know…I hate it when things I teach come back to convict me. 🙂 All that to say, it’s all just harder when you’re away from home. Routine things take so much longer and take so much more effort. Bedtime at home takes me 5 minutes…here it took 2 hours.
It’s easy to just get lost. I thought Jeff and I were both good with directions. We’ve driven Chicago, Boston, LA, Seattle…we’re faily competant–or at least I thought. For some reason Austin has us all mixed up. The location of our hotel is like a black hole. If you miss something you’ll end up driving around and around unable to get to it–and once you’re here, it’s hard to figure out how to get out. It’s hard to explain, but it’s just a really odd location. Today we drove for 2 hours to go get dinner, and ended up finally going to the Wendy’s across the street from our hotel. It sounds pathetic, I know. For some reason we just wound up all over the place.
You don’t have what you need. As much as you try to pack it all, it always seems like we don’t end up with what we need. Heidi’s sippy cup didn’t make it to the suitcase, and that silly girl didn’t seem to like it when I tried to help her drink ice water from a regular cup on the plane and it poured down the front of her shirt. I packed practical shoes, but not practical for the DOWNPOUR that they are experiencing here in Austin. Who knew it would be pouring down rain and freezing cold (40s) and everyone would be wearing rainboots and using umbrellas? Silly Portland people came unprepared.
People don’t really know you, and you don’t know them. So we’re doing this silly video, which meant I had to talk to a bunch of strangers and get them to go along with me in this silly thing. A lot of them were pretty skeptical. And rightly so…they don’t know me from Adam. It’s hard to earn trust, and it’s hard to trust. Similarly, for some reason I’d thought I’d feel totally comfortable walking around the streets of Austin on my own with Heidi, hiking and exploring the city, just like I would back home. Not so much. For some reason people look a little scarier. I went into a grocery store today and very quickly felt out of place… nothing dangerous, I was just in an interesting neighborhood and hadn’t realized it, and I was happy to find Jeff waiting for me outside.
You’re real tired but can’t sleep. I don’t think there is any spiritual parallel to this one. It’s just that I love my bed at home and Jeff is out late tonight and Heidi’s making little snorting noises while she sleeps…and I’m sitting here, exhausted but unable to sleep. Hence the blog post. Not much seriously significant, but tomorrow we’re exploring the University of Texas campus, and a sweet looking strip called Burnet street, lined with eclectic consignment and second-hand shops (Yes, Mom, Jeff will be with me–his conference starts at 3pm). Goodnight, ya’ll.