"Somewhere Over the Ocean"

This is post if for all those wives and moms who have stayed beind to hold down the fort so to speak, while dad or hubby is away. Sammy returns today from a 10 day mission trip, fingers crossed on time, and we are elated! As the weeks drew closer my feeling of excitement for him was paralleled by this strange feeling of what will we do???? We pulled away, after dropping him at the terminal gate, and after a few tears we immediately began "the schedule". It occurred to me I had planned almost every second of every day he was gone. This is actually funny if you know me because I am not the planner- that hat is worn by Sammy at all times. We felt so blessed and loved on. We had more people want to see us and entertain us than we had days to fill. It did trouble me somewhat that life with Sammy here just happened and life with him away felt like someone elses very fun distraction. So since I had time, between refreshing the "flight status" page over and over again, I began to ponder why this past 10 days had felt different. First, we are a family that does everything together like even the stressful stuff like grocery shopping or long car rides. We are used to dad walking in the door M-F at 5:15 and we just are together. It feels natural and safe. Second, we can call dad whenever we want during the day, and we may do that too much :) sometimes! Who knew the wifi access in Africa is spotty at best? Even when we did talk it felt awkward and impersonal though we were glad to see him. Then, lastly, night time ughh the dreaded night. The kids got sad because they slowed long enough to think about it and I didn't sleep longer than two hours at a time.....maybe because Ethan's toes were in my nose but all the same-NO SLEEP! There are two positive sides to this....the first and most obvious is that my husband got to go half way around the world and shine the light of Christ (well worth any small sacrifice we made), and two we reconnected with friends and family. The daily phone calls, emails, visits, dinner invitations, etc were just heartwarming and comforting. Our heater even broke while Sammy was away and one of my best friend's husbands took care of fixing it. So while Sammy is off loving others he doesn't know-AMAZING- some people here are taking up the slack and loving us! So Biblical and its humbling to me! So while these past ten days have been tough I wouldn't change them for those reasons....I am glad I was here and he was there......even if a part of my heart is still somewhere over the ocean- scheduled to land in Atlanta only 25 min. late :) Hey....I said I wouldn't change it not that I wasn't ready like ummmmmm yesterday for him to come home :) baby steps!