I'm Leaving on a Jetplane....

This is it. The bag is packed (in singular form because the husband's isn't) and I am just sitting down to gather my thoughts and pray before we set off to Washington. J's graduation is on Sun 17th and I hope I am not too jetlagged and fall asleep during the ceremony!

This trip has been a time of pre-departure anxiety. I hope, even as I am writing this, that J has booked a car to pick us up from the airport. She has promised to make all the necessary arrangements and it is nice to be on the receiving end of arrangements than the one making them. One of the benefits of having your children grow up on you :) But my anxiety has stemmed more from the uncertainty that surrounds my return. With this spate of H1N1 flu, I almost was not given permission to leave for the US and it was truly a prayer answered that the alert was downgraded from orange to yellow, thus allowing me to travel, but with the dire threat that I will have to "exercise social responsibility" and might have to self-quarantine if the situation worsens between now and my return. I have just committed this to the Lord and focused on finishing my work and getting packed. What is the use of worrying and why worry anyway when God reigns!

I am looking forward very much to seeing J again. It has been a long time and though she isn't thrilled about it, I am looking forward to having her home again. It will also be a time of meeting many new people - people who have loved my daughter and blessed her in many ways and been a part of her life these past 4 years. I am a little bit anxious - it would be a lie if I said I wasn't - largely because I think J has made me out to be this larger-than-life person and I know I am not. Just because my daughters love me, it doesn't mean everyone else would, right? So well, I hope I just relax and enjoy myself, because I know that one thing I struggle with is this deep desire to be liked. It has been an area God has grown me in, especially this last year - just being myself, just a child of God and accepting that.

Well, I didn't set out to write a reflective piece, so I'll stop. My great desire to visit New York has been thwarted by H1N1, because then surely I would be quarantined! and we have changed our plans to visit Chicago instead after we go to Madison. I suppose that is another source of anxiety - meeting my brother and sister-in-law again after more than 15 years. But at the same time I'm also looking forward to it as my brother has gotten on in years and I do want to meet him now that I will be in the US as he does not travel.

Well, there will be silence from me for a while as I set off to the US. Please keep me in your prayers.