In January we hosted a goodbye party for a family in our ward that was getting ready to move to Germany. There were only a few months between their decision to move and their move date, and I remember watching her and thinking how exhausted she looked all of the time.
The night of their party I sat in the family room and watched them talking in the kitchen with people in the ward that have been their church family for the last 10 years. I told Russ afterwards that the party was hard on my house and hard on my heart. Hard on my recently painted house to be that full of little kids for a couple of hours. Hard on my heart to watch someone else saying their goodbyes, knowing that in a few short months that would be us.
I actually told Nancy that we weren’t going to have a going away party, but she overruled me. She did say that she was going to call it a viewing instead of a party though. We decided to have it last night while Russ was back for Easter weekend.
This time I am the one that is exhausted. We are the ones saying goodbye to our church family for the last 17 years. It was hard—hard on Nancy’s house, and hard on my heart—but not as bad as I expected. (I only cried once.)
I loved seeing all of these friends; being able to talk to everyone, to hug everyone, to know that I will not leave feeling like I need to say all of my goodbyes in the hallway at church.
How we ended up in Durham 2nd is actually an interesting story. When Russ & I came here for his job interview 17 years ago this weekend, we went to church in the other ward. Their choir was amazing. AMAZING. We joked that we had mistakenly wandered into the Baptist church. I wanted to be in that ward and experience that quality of music on a weekly basis. But from the beginning, I knew it wasn’t the ward for us. I knew without even realizing I knew it, that D2 was the place for us. And I’ve never regretted , not even for a moment. I left the party last night feeling like we have been richly blessed in our associations here in the Durham 2nd ward, both past and present.
This ward and these people will forever be a part of us…
Just stumbled on this which expresses my feelings about my ward very well.
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When we were preparing to leave WA (and still didn't know any details of HOW it would work, just that we knew it was right), I was feeling sad one night about the thought of leaving our wonderful ward family and the things we loved about the area. I had a lot of mixed emotions because I was excited for moving back to ID but scared for not knowing any of the HOW and sad for leaving. I KNEW it would all work out, but I was still struggling emotionally with it.
ReplyDeleteThen I had a flash of understanding: our 8 years in WA had been a gift. Heavenly Father did not HAVE to bring us to WA, but He knew the lessons we would learn and the people who would touch our lives there. The thought literally took me aback. I marveled with gratitude at all we would have missed (that we never would have even realized we were missing) if we had never come. It totally changed my perspective and helped me to savor every "last" moment we had there.
I enjoyed reading that link. The thought that I would have a ward family waiting for me wherever we ended up (even if they were strangers at first) was a comfort to me during that time of not knowing. And, if it's any comfort to you as you face your unknown new ward family, we have loved BOTH the new wards we've been privileged to be part of here in Nampa. =) (So basically, that's a long-winded way of saying I recognize your pain even while I know your roots will hurt more being transplanted because they had more time in their original spot.)
How incredibly fortunate we are to be your "PEEPS"! And what a huge hole you will leave in our lives and our hearts when you go...
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