36, Day 5

This world is not my home, I’m just passing through....Here we are but straying pilgrims...Anywhere with Jesus I can safely go...changes and endings should be something we are comfortable with considering how much time we devote to reminding ourselves that nothing stays the same for long and most things in this life are very brief. Truth is, we tell ourselves these things over and over, not because we believe them, but because we don’t want to believe them and are trying to convince ourselves. Like it or not, believe it or not, everything in life is temporary and brief, which is why it is so important to find one thing that is constant.

For me that constant is my wife. I have known her since I was a kid and have watched her change from a girl to a girlfriend to a wife to a mother and I know one day I will watch her change again into a grandmother. Despite all of these changes, one thing hasn’t changed, how much I love her. Our lives together have changed so many times and drastically too. She has been right by my side through high school, college, 3rd shift, college again, more college (preaching school), preaching, changing churches, leaving preaching and beginning mission work. She’s been there from Pulaski to Florence back to Pulaski to Memphis, back to Pulaski to Georgia. It takes a special and amazing wife to always be by her husband and to support him wherever he goes and whatever he does. So much has changed in my life but one thing that has never changed is the presence, support and love of my wife Jade. She’s the reason it doesn’t matter how I earn my paycheck or where my mailing address is, or if I even have a home, because I know that wherever and whatever, she will be there when I get home (wherever that is). And that is all I need. She is my escape and my motivation. I can’t wait to sit in my home in Georgia, surrounded by people, places and things that I don’t know, a fish out of water and as uncomfortable as I could be, and then look at the other end of the couch and see her sitting there. I can’t wait to be in a jungle, an island or a strange city in a country far from home, surrounded by people I don’t know who speak a language I don’t understand, and feel her grab my hand and hear her voice say I love you (te amo), we did it. Her name is Jade, but she is my Ruth. "Entreat me not to leave you, or to turn back from following you; For wherever you go, I will go; And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. The LORD do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me." (Ruth 1:16–17 NKJV) This world is not my home and I am just passing through, but I am so thankful that she is passing through with me.