Living Far From Home - Things I Didn't See Coming

Where we live is one area of my life where I constantly need to be reminded to trust God. My husband and I have lived at least 300 miles away from both of our families and all of our childhood and young adult friends for the entirety of our married life. We moved away a week after our wedding, since our college was 300 miles away. After college we moved to seminary where my husband continues to study to become a pastor. We now live 500 miles away from our hometown. This summer we move again, and we could be going anywhere in the country as Jonathan goes on vicarage, a one-year internship-like program where he works under a supervising pastor at a church in our church body. Then we'll be back here for one more year of grad school, and after that we will be placed with a church that could be anywhere in the country for his first call as a pastor.


Before we got married I had no idea what it would be like to live so far away from family and friends. I thought it would be hard, but it sounded adventurous too. I was excited about it to a great extent. Today, not so much. Now to be clear, I am absolutely passionate about my husband's call to ministry. I happen to think he's going to be an incredible pastor. I am happy to be here with him while he studies, and I can't wait to see where we end up and how we end up serving God and the church in the next few years. It will be wonderful, and a great opportunity for us to grow in our faith and reliance on God. But one thing I don't like at all is being far from family.

Here are some things I didn't know, realize, or think about before moving away from "home." Anyone who has ever moved away will probably be able to relate. It is so hard!

"When I'm a Mom I'll Do Better..."

I think every mom (or parent for that matter) has a picture in their head of the ideal parent they want to be. For me, Ideal Christa gets up every morning at the same time each day, grabs a cup of coffee, reads her Bible and has some quiet prayer time, gets her daughter out of bed, feeds her, eats breakfast, and then starts the day. In the course of the day, Ideal Christa gets a healthy, delicious dinner prepared with at least two or three side-dishes, does a couple loads of laundry, maybe puts in a few hours of work from home, but still manages to read to her daughter, spend lots of time playing together, has time to snuggle on the couch, and takes a 45 minute walk with her little girl in the stroller.  Oh, and the house is always clean. I have discovered that sadly, Ideal Christa is as fictitious as Frodo Baggins, Obi-Wan Kenobi, or my favorite characters from Grey's Anatomy. She just doesn't exist. I keep trying to find her though. Sometimes I find pieces of her, but then other parts go.

Before I was pregnant or had a daughter I had a mental list of habits that I was going to quit before I had kids. Mostly these were habits I developed in college, things I knew I didn't want to have be central to my family, but things that were just too easy and natural to do at the time. I always consoled myself by thinking I would cut back on TV, stop watching so much Netflix, only listen to 100% wholesome music, cut certain words out of my vocabulary, start exercising regularly, and of course, never eat junk food again, when I was a mom. Wow, was I crazy!

9 Reasons Why I Can't Wait to Homeschool My Kids

I was homeschooled through 10th grade, and I loved every year. I know not everyone who was homeschooled can say that, and I know it may not be for everyone, but I treasure my childhood, and I am passionate about homeschooling and passing that blessing along to my children. When my mother started homeschooling it was even less common than it is today, and it was somewhat untested. Today, my generation of homeschool kids have grown up, and we can now tell our story with perspective.

If you are considering homeschooling, here are some reasons why I can't wait to homeschool my kids, from the perspective of a grown-up homeschool kid:

"Let's Have Seven Children!"

As we sat in the coffee shop at our community college over six years ago, our relationship still young and fresh, we jumped into all those big questions with enthusiasm. "How many kids do you want?" I can't remember which of us answered first, but I remember my answer. "At least seven!" I think he was a little surprised, but if I recall correctly he responded with, "Okay, sure, we can do that," or something along those lines. I was so excited that we were on the same page about having a large family.

I never let go of that vision. My dream even before we started dating was to be a stay-at-home mom with "at least seven" children, homeschooling all of them and being there for everything. I knew that would be challenging. I don't think I romanticized it too much (although I'm sure I romanticized it some) because my mom stayed at home and homeschooled me and my siblings. I had several friends and acquaintances that had large families, and I knew that that was what I wanted. 

I don't think wanting to be a stay-at-home mom means I lack ambition. I do feel that society tends to tell women that "they can do it all," implying that they should do it all. Well, I don't want to do it all! I just want to do the mom thing and do it really, really well. And you know what? I think that's crazy ambitious! There are not that many people these days that want to have that many kids, and while many moms choose to stay at home, many more go back to the work force, especially after their children are school-aged. I checked the census data (because I'm cool that way) and in 2009 5% of women in the United States between the ages of 15 and 44 had four or more kids. And while I don't have the numbers, I don't imagine that all of them want to stay at home and educate all their kids themselves. That's probably a fairly elite group! So tell me again how I'm not ambitious, World. 

A Hospital Visit for Christmas

There is a moment, some point in time, where you realize that this being a parent thing is the absolute scariest thing that's ever happened to you. This baby that you thought was going to be so wonderful and so fun has now made you into a completely crazy person who makes no sense at all. You cry when nothing is wrong and you freak out even though everything is going to be fine, because what if everything isn't fine? What if something happens to my baby? 

This moment happened for me on Christmas Eve this past December when our little girl decided that she would like to go to the E.R. and visit the hospital for her first Christmas. To make a long story short, Little Girl decided to choke on her own spit while sleeping in her car seat after the Christmas Eve church service. When we got home from church she was asleep, so I brought the car seat in and set it on the floor in my parent's living room. About fifteen minutes later I heard her wake up coughing violently and ran over to her. I took her out of the car seat, patted her on the back, and tried to help her get whatever it was coughed up. She never stopped breathing, but after the coughing episode she went very pale and listless, which was very unusual. I completely panicked. I called the doctor's exchange, and when they said they would have to call me back, I decided there was no way I was waiting for that and we went to the E.R.

Little Girl with her Daddy in the hospital.

If you bring a 2 month old baby into the E.R. and say that she's limp and pale, you do not have to wait, you go right back and see a doctor! Of course, by the time a doctor came into the room, Little Girl was breathing fine, color had returned to her face, and she was kicking so enthusiastically that it took 5-10 minutes to find a pulse! The doctor assured us that everything was almost certainly fine, but because she was so little, standard practice was to admit her overnight and watch her, just to be sure that she was okay and that it had only been a choking fit.