I returned home to Maryland tonight after my fourth week of work up in Delaware, in which I've been challenged (in a way that I hope is causing me to grow) and also blessed by new friendships with individuals who I am honored to know.
Not only have I felt myself growing and changing, but over the course of a week, the dynamics of my family have altered in ways that I knew would come, just not this soon.
My little brother was hanging out with his friends when I opened the door and dragged in my bags. He yelled, "Hey!" and gave me a big hug, asking me about my job and how I was doing. He just started his junior year at a new high school. He's working, playing soccer, and driving himself around. I didn't expect for one summer to change him in such dramatic ways, nor did I anticipate that the seven years between us would one day come to feel so small. My little brother isn't so little anymore. The tenderness and care that were present in him even as a little boy are now coming out in this young man who is growing into a leader. I am so proud of him.
After catching up a bit with him, I went downstairs to do a load of laundry and started to look for a clean, semi-cute outfit to wear while my clothing was in the washer. I couldn't find anything, and that's because the fashionista in the family, my sister Brianna, left this morning for California. She's one day into her cross-country roadtrip to Redding, where she will attend Bethel for a year. I miss her already.
I started thinking about the random technological devices in my house, and realized that the essence of another was also missing. Siobhan led the way to California a few years ago, and she just moved back a week ago after spending all summer at a camp up in New York. I think she has the west coast bug and probably won't be coming back east for a long time. I was able to see her for a few hours while she was home, and amazement does not even begin to describe my reaction to how much she grew over the summer. This gutsy sister of mine started sharing the journey that God's been taking her on in learning to believe in herself and stand up for the things that He's placed in her heart. I started to tear up. Her courage challenges me. She's faced hard things in life, yet there is this feisty boldness that she is walking in that refuses to give up. It's incredible.
My heart may be feeling the intensity of these changes so deeply because of how close all of us are to each other. I consider my siblings to be some of my best friends in the whole world, and maybe that closeness came from sharing experiences (a number of them painful) that no one else may ever fully understand--and having to learn how to fight for one another, even on those days when we don't necessarily "like" each other.
I wasn't prepared for everything to change so quickly, even if that is the normal progression of life. Childhood feels even further away with each growth spurt, yet I know that no matter how tall we may grow, both individually and as a family, we will never be too tall to kneel down and remember the days of tent building, hide & seek, tickle monster, homework, strange school experiences, telling jokes that only we got, midnight swim sessions, prank calls, random adventures. Even the days of hurting for each other during the personal battles that hit in those awkward growing up years (and still hit from time to time)--and realizing that sometimes rescue comes in the form of a hug, a passionate prayer, and an emergency trip to the ice cream shop.
I'm excited, though. I'm excited that the home front is becoming an empty nest and that we are all coming into our own--learning to fly at our own stride. There is no telling the stories that will come our way in the next year--the great adventures that we will find ourselves in as we are continually surrendering to the grandness of a story bigger than ourselves, into the hands of a Father who orders each of our steps. In that I will trust, even in the moments where the changes leave me feeling a bit in the dark. He is faithful to our hearts. And that is a forever kind of faithfulness. The kind that has no comprehension of an end.
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Wait on the LORD,
And keep His way,
And He shall exalt you to inherit the land; [Psalm 37:34]
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