Early Morning Reminiscing

I've slept good since I got to Okinawa, but I just keep waking up at the crack of dawn every morning (after dreaming of sleeping in every day once I got here, hehe). After laying in bed awake for a while, I decided to go for a little walk and get some Starbucks (since someone has loaned my coffee pot to their shop for their Marines to use. This person's name shall remain unmentioned). Goodness the weather is so different here from Dallas, TX. It's not hot at all out there this morning but the humidity can almost choke you. Thankfully the evenings have not been like that since I've been here and we had a very pleasant, leisurely walk around American Village last night.


Anyway, so I got to Starbucks and even though they're supposed to open at 6:00 (and it was about 6:30), I guess they're closed today because of the holiday? Oh military base...why are you so silly? Just because it's labor day doesn't mean we the people don't want coffee!! :( So I decided to keep walking another quarter mile or so up to the "Shoppette". For you non-military-ers, this is like a convenient store, the only one of which is open 24/7 in case you need some milk at midnight, or in my case during my last pregnancy, an emergency late night run for sweet tarts. (Yea, I know. Weird). Here was some of my scenic little walk.

Once I got to the Shoppette, I felt like I had just stepped out of a sauna so I opted for a java chiller instead of my original plan of a piping hot latte cause that would have just been gross by this point. Yum! Good choice.

On my walk back home, I started thinking a lot about all the times I had walked that path. I was once a stranger here. Completely lost in this new foreign world. I walked that path trying to bring on labor with Izaak. I took him on walks there when he was a baby. I walked trying to bring on labor with Mav. I took them both on walks there after he was born. One of my very favorite views of this walk (or drive), is going down this steep hill towards the chow hall where you have a wide open view of the East China Sea. Depending on the time of day, the weather, etc, the water is always different colors. Sometimes there are white caps and other times it's very still. I just always, always enjoyed driving down that hill and looking out there and never ceasing to be amazed that I live on the East China Sea! I wish my boys could remember their time here and this place where they were born. But I hope that God has plans to bring us back here as a family one day.

So back to my reminiscing...I couldn't help but quickly tear up as I thought of everything we've been through over the past 3 years that we've been stationed here. Of course, I haven't physically been here for the past 5 months, but part of my heart has still been here. John and I have lived here the longest as a married couple. I became a mommy here. I grew so much as a person and a wife and then a mother. The ups and downs. The failures. The sad times, the happy times. The times I lost faith in God. The times I grew in my faith. The amazing, amazing, life long friends that we made here. I could never be thankful enough for them. You guys have been my rock.

Then on February 21st of this year, I left Okinawa, not knowing that I would never be coming back to live. I really had been getting excited that we only had a few months left here. I was ready to leave. It wasn't until after we were told we wouldn't be coming back, because of Mav's health, that I realized how much I missed this place. Having lived in Dallas the past 5 months, it's made me realized what a simple life we lived here. Sure, there were times I was about driven insane when the commissary was out of orange juice for the 3rd week in a row and Wal-Mart wanted to charge me $25 to ship a shower curtain which wouldn't be here for another 6 weeks. But...my family has been separated for almost half a year now and you know what? In Dallas I could go to like 20 different places within a 10 mile radius that had all the shower curtains I could ever want. And I realized....you know, that's just not what life's about. I've also realized that malls are overpriced and overcrowded and I really have not spent much time at all there. Target sure is convenient, no doubt about it. But I know now that I CAN live without it. I never thought I would say this, but I'm very thankful for these past 5 months. God has grown me in ways that I couldn't have grown without going through this. My heart has changed in so many ways. And just one of the many, many things I have come to realize is, "This world is not my home". I am not supposed to be comfortable here. It's incredible how much control I've been able to let go of. Maverick for example....well, that's for another post on another day. I'm thankful for these trials I've had. I feel like it's been more like 5 years of growth rather than 5 months. I'm so thankful the ways God has reminded me that I don't have control over anything and the ways I have been forced, in a good way, to hand everything over to him and just.....trust. I'm so thankful for the beautiful, amazing family he's given me that I just.....can't say enough about because there are only tears of happiness. And today I'm so thankful that God gave me the opportunity to come back to this place. To this beautiful island where my family began. To remind me again of all I've been given. To realize once more that this world is not my home, I'm just passing through. I am not supposed to stay in once place and get comfortable. I will keep going, keep moving, keep growing, keep learning, keep seeking his Kingdom as my ultimate destination. What beauty, peace, and ultimate rest and contentment is waiting for me there...I just can't imagine. Maybe God and I will have an early morning walk to the Heavenly Starbucks that never closes. Hehe ;)

P.S. Blogger won't let me post pictures right now for some reason so I will add them later!