A Love Affair
We all know what I'm talking about.
That thing.
Maybe it's a TV show. Maybe it's a football team. It could be a band. Maybe it's cars. Maybe it's cooking. That newest piece of technology.
It's that thing that your spouse/boyfriend/girlfriend/parent/friend/sibling/second-cousin-once-removed is obsessed with and ALWAYS. TALKS. ABOUT. It doesn't matter what the topic of conversation is, it can always be brought back to that thing.
You: "I bought this pair of stripped socks the other day..."
Your friend (whose 'thing' is, say, saving endangered species): "Oh really? Well speaking of stripes, did you know that bees are dying at an alarming rate due to pesticides?"*
*I use this example, because I have been that debbie-downer more that a few times.
We all have our thing. More importantly (or annoyingly), we all spend time with people who have their own things.
My husband has a thing. It's called, Japan.
Any one who has known us, or at least Justin, for a while knows that if you converse with us for any length of time, the topic of the country of Japan will come up. It's more or less inevitable. It's been this way for as long as I have known him.
At first it was intriguing. Then it was charming. Eventually it was cute. But some time after marriage, it became frustrating.
I didn't understand. What's so important about Japan? Let's talk about Yemen or Greece or Bolivia or Sweden or anywhere else! Sometimes, I would allow it to downright offend me. That sounds ridiculous, right?
Well.
This past weekend Justin and I had the serendipitous pleasure of meeting a couple who had spent over 20 years working in a church in Japan. As young people, they had moved straight from Finland, not knowing Japanese or English, and made that country their home. Since leaving Japan, they have returned to Finland, and lived in several places in Canada. But they still try, they both said, to make a visit to Japan whenever possible. Among many of the interesting and inspiring things they talked about, one comment the gentleman said hit me like bolt of lightening:
"I'm 78 years old, but my heart is still in Japan."
Woah.
I wanted to scream at him, how'd you get my husband's heart??!
I'm happy to say that my husband's burden for the country of Japan has not been a source of contention for quite a while now. At some point in our marriage I learned that I didn't need to completely understand. Perhaps I never fully would. For the time being, I just needed to trust my husband, and have faith.
However, the beauty of what I heard in that man's comment the other day is that it birthed an understanding in me that I had been desperately looking for.
When this couple heard that we planned to move to Japan in the very near future, their faces positively beamed as they made exclamations of joy. It wasn't hard to see that their joy was not rooted in the fact that Justin and I in particular had made that decision. It wasn't so much that they were excited for us. It wasn't even that they were so overjoyed that we were trying to follow God's will for our lives. Their excitement was in the fact that there were other people who loved their country like they did. Maybe someone who could carry on where they had left off. There was someone else whose desires would lead them to care for the place and people they loved.
Their excitement, in essence, was not for us. It was for Japan.
To say things have been falling into place for Justin and I over the last month would be an understatement. Everywhere we turn we see God's hand easing us through this time of transition. For me, this was one of the final pieces of the puzzle that is our decision to relocate to Japan. It feels to me like after a leap of faith, I find myself landing on solid ground.
I am beginning, like that wonderful Finnish couple, to rejoice in my husband's 'thing.'
That thing.
Maybe it's a TV show. Maybe it's a football team. It could be a band. Maybe it's cars. Maybe it's cooking. That newest piece of technology.
It's that thing that your spouse/boyfriend/girlfriend/parent/friend/sibling/second-cousin-once-removed is obsessed with and ALWAYS. TALKS. ABOUT. It doesn't matter what the topic of conversation is, it can always be brought back to that thing.
You: "I bought this pair of stripped socks the other day..."
Your friend (whose 'thing' is, say, saving endangered species): "Oh really? Well speaking of stripes, did you know that bees are dying at an alarming rate due to pesticides?"*
*I use this example, because I have been that debbie-downer more that a few times.
We all have our thing. More importantly (or annoyingly), we all spend time with people who have their own things.
My husband has a thing. It's called, Japan.
Any one who has known us, or at least Justin, for a while knows that if you converse with us for any length of time, the topic of the country of Japan will come up. It's more or less inevitable. It's been this way for as long as I have known him.
At first it was intriguing. Then it was charming. Eventually it was cute. But some time after marriage, it became frustrating.
I didn't understand. What's so important about Japan? Let's talk about Yemen or Greece or Bolivia or Sweden or anywhere else! Sometimes, I would allow it to downright offend me. That sounds ridiculous, right?
Well.
This past weekend Justin and I had the serendipitous pleasure of meeting a couple who had spent over 20 years working in a church in Japan. As young people, they had moved straight from Finland, not knowing Japanese or English, and made that country their home. Since leaving Japan, they have returned to Finland, and lived in several places in Canada. But they still try, they both said, to make a visit to Japan whenever possible. Among many of the interesting and inspiring things they talked about, one comment the gentleman said hit me like bolt of lightening:
"I'm 78 years old, but my heart is still in Japan."
Woah.
I wanted to scream at him, how'd you get my husband's heart??!
I'm happy to say that my husband's burden for the country of Japan has not been a source of contention for quite a while now. At some point in our marriage I learned that I didn't need to completely understand. Perhaps I never fully would. For the time being, I just needed to trust my husband, and have faith.
However, the beauty of what I heard in that man's comment the other day is that it birthed an understanding in me that I had been desperately looking for.
When this couple heard that we planned to move to Japan in the very near future, their faces positively beamed as they made exclamations of joy. It wasn't hard to see that their joy was not rooted in the fact that Justin and I in particular had made that decision. It wasn't so much that they were excited for us. It wasn't even that they were so overjoyed that we were trying to follow God's will for our lives. Their excitement was in the fact that there were other people who loved their country like they did. Maybe someone who could carry on where they had left off. There was someone else whose desires would lead them to care for the place and people they loved.
Their excitement, in essence, was not for us. It was for Japan.
To say things have been falling into place for Justin and I over the last month would be an understatement. Everywhere we turn we see God's hand easing us through this time of transition. For me, this was one of the final pieces of the puzzle that is our decision to relocate to Japan. It feels to me like after a leap of faith, I find myself landing on solid ground.
I am beginning, like that wonderful Finnish couple, to rejoice in my husband's 'thing.'
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