Traditions

As many of you know I got engaged this past summer and am getting married this coming June (whoop whoop). I couldn't be more excited (seriously, I am jazzed to begin this new journey). I recognize that this also comes with all sorts of new challenges and all of that good stuff, I am not living in utopia for sure. The first major transitional piece for me comes this week. I have spent every Christmas and Thanksgiving with my family since I was born, literally, they have either driven to be with me or I have driven to be with them. Family is ridiculously important to me. Given that my call is a little strange in terms of hours/holidays and what not, I don't get to travel on the weekends much and will never have Christmas off. My fiancé suggested since my family will come up for Christmas that we should head to Wisconsin to see his family over Thanksgiving. The brilliance of this plan is that we get more than 24 hours with them and don't have to rush back so I can work Sunday morning, the crappy part is my family will be 12 hours away. I know that it will be great and that his family is jazzed to have us coming back and all that wonderfulness it is just another one of those transitions and change is always hard, even if we deny it.

I am processing the fact that I won't be with my family and that it will be just fine - just one of those things I need to think through, pray through, recognize, and embrace the new beginnings.

In an unrelated topic, for those of you who are praying people I would ask for prayers for my friend Katie and her husband, Andy, as Katie has some medical issues putting her in the hospital. It is moments like this when it is so hard to be so far away from home and to not be able to run up to the hospital and be with her. It is moments like this I curse not being able to be by her side. I cling to the promises of God in the midst of this all and know that it is God who holds them both close and is working in and through the medical staff as they figure out what is going on with one of my most favorite people in the whole wide wor