Seeing God's mercy in my life ~ beginning with a sunny day at the beach

After 10 years
(or so),
I went back to beautiful BC.

 

 The first day we went to a quiet small beach;
refreshing and relaxing;
we spent the day with my new Aunt, Uncle,
Sister-in-law and Cutest New Nephew Ever. 

I had so many memories rushing back.

Remembering my first trips to Stanley Park
with classmates from TWU.
*
It made me realize so many things.
*
How glad I am to be married for one.
I had forgotten how in my early twenties
I would feel this deep lack,
not an insecure lack,
though I had some insecurity in my 20's for sure.
But this deep real present absence of the one
person I was sure was somewhere but
no where near to me then.
I felt it then most of all,
in BC, in my camp years of seeing people slowly
dating, marrying and praying together;
I so wanted a husband to be with,
that one person who I could share life with
who would be from where I was.
I guess in all the changes, adjustments to living in
BC where I had never been before,
the leaving of one's family
I was wishing for that one person who would be from my family,
a Christian and yet be where I was going to,
in terms of church, how I was learning to relate to God and,
in the other way to say it,
was reading the same books I was discovering,
speaking that same language I was speaking.
*
I had forgotten over the years how deeply
I would feel this lack of that
human being who I was looking for.
I felt it like it was all-encompassing,
as if I was grieving the loss of the one
I was looking for.
*
I see now that I was not only looking for him
who I was given years later,
but for the culture I left, for my family.
I was looking for the one that
I could have this same family with.
*
I can only praise God that years later
I was given just that man.

So that first day I remembered
how at the beginning of my BC days
I was young.
*
So much came back in those days.
The first day itself was simple and wonderful.
Being with a new Aunt and Uncle who were Dutch and
very Christian,
a wonderful Sister-in-law and her baby
who are Christians and the baby had already been
baptized by the time I met him,
my beautiful smiley nephew who,
as I say,
was born on my watch
as in after I married my beloved Mr. Husband.

 

Meanwhile,
I saw so much about my life in BC
back when I moved there in January of 1998.
*
 For the first time in my life I was near a
big city.
I did not know a lot of how people were
and how things could go wrong.
I meet all sorts of people in those 5.5 years.
Some committed Christians,
some young 20's who were rejecting Christ
while at a Christian school
and some who were decidedly in-between
and then miraculously those who had
discovered a more historical church,
who were rooted in the Orthodox Church.
*
I could see how God so mercifully kept me
from harm and protected me.
*
So much happened
since then,
I left BC after becoming a catechumen in the Orthodox church
and move in MI and then to London Ontario
and then to Ottawa
that I left to marry my husband.

 

 All that came back to me on
this trip,
starting with that memory I had of being with
classmates at Stanley Park that
we were near, on that beach.
*
It was a wonderful day.
I was with family that I quickly found out I was
very at home with,
knitted my nephew a simple cotton bib,
got sun-burnt and saw
that night a friend I knew from library school
and three years in Ottawa before she moved to Vancouver.
We got to talk about Ottawa and moving
and it was so good to talk to a friend of 6 years who
knew all about moving and trying to make a new
home and community.
*
We made plans to see each other the following week
so she could meet my beloved Mr. Husband
who was not coming until Friday as
he had work to do and more limited days for vacation.
*
It was a beautiful wonderful day,
one that I have so many beautiful pictures and memories of,
and the beginning of realizations and thankfulness to God....