Changes

God blessed our family with an opportunity to live in “paradise” somewhat recently, and we spent a year living on a tropical island in the Caribbean. We are now back in Georgia living in a similarly warm but different climate and it’s given me some stark examples of how the year has changed us.

Though it was not a move with the intention of growing or changing, growth and change happened, in some ways the same as it would have if we had not moved and in some subtle and not so subtle ways so that now, amidst our same friends and in many of the same places, we are very different and our friends are as well.

For example, living as we did among the trade winds, we became accustomed to keeping open doors and windows year round. Because of this there was no need to close doors as we ran back and forth from the yard to the house.

This lifestyle still shows its face now in the bitter cold (I’m not exaggerating - in these small little mountains the December temperatures are already in the mid to high 30s during the day) when the younger children run outside to the garage and leave the door open. This training issue is not one I expected. Let’s be honest - when it’s warm inside and freezing cold outside it seems to be common sense to pull the door closed. Apparently, that’s a common sense you get from training.

There are so many other things that have changed from the size of our family to daily routines and planning, all relatively good, showing a growing family who is learning God’s grace together as we weather trials both big and small and learn to put things in perspective.

For one thing, I forgot how cold it can get in the winter, and that the sun hides for so much of the day. While I miss the bright sunshine of the Caribbean which last year was streaming strongly through the window as early as 6:15 on a regular basis, I’m very grateful that we do see the sun daily and aren’t so far north that the sun simply disappears for several months of the year.

Our daily routines were very different as well. Today I consider what we will need in order to comfortably spend our day away from home, studying music and Chinese, playing on playgrounds and working on bookwork. For today I have to consider indoor activities as well since it is not going to warm up much. On the island I rarely had to plan meals away from home or consider alternatives to outdoor play for it was easy to get home within 30 minutes.

To continue to list the differences would make for a very long post, so I shall stop there, but I really am glad for the different opportunities we had last year and the new and different opportunities that God has provided here, even as they sometimes cause me to stop and wonder at the changes in our family, in our maturity and in our circumstances.