Pullman

My husband and I spent this past weekend in Pullman, Washington. It’s one of those places that will remain a mystery to folks who have not experienced its splendor and charm. Each year, thousands of students leave home and travel to Pullman for the next chapter in their life, but something happens on that journey. There is a switch that takes place somewhere on that drive, and no longer are you leaving home but you are driving home. The drive across Washington is another mystery all of its own, how could hours of wheat fields, cows (and their smells), and barren dessert, be considered picturesque and tranquil? Only the allure of Pullman could be capable of making it so. The delicacy of Pullman’s spell is that you don’t know you are under it until you find yourself in the world you spent four years in Pullman working to get to.

For six years of my husband’s life and for four of my own, we have fought hard to leave Pullman and find our place in the world. We’ve both been blessed with many traveling experiences in our lives, so we had been aware from the beginning how limiting our quaint comfort bubble of Pullman really was. However, despite its fictional version of life, our experiences in Pullman, lifestyle, people, church, and education shaped us into who we are by allowing us to confidently find our identity in Christ, and our future together. It was not until this last weekend that I realized how I felt about leaving Pullman last May. Though leaving Pullman was partly due to choice, it was also largely based upon the flow of our two lives merging together. This weekend I realized that when we left Pullman last May, it was as if we were brutally ripped away from our family and loved ones. These emotions ultimately fostered a bittersweet reunion.

Sunday Keith spoke of the Great Commission and being part of the legacy. Talk about the most appropriate sermon Chris and I could have heard in the midst of our emotions and broken hearts from not living in Pullman anymore. Though it may come across as blunt and insensitive, God has called each and every one of us to go, go out and make disciples of all nations. Living in a place of comfort, safety, and routine doesn’t necessarily encompass this calling. It does not take much digging into our current life to see that after a lifetime of faith testing experiences for me, and a very harsh graduate degree experience for Chris, that the Lord’s blessings have flourished in our lives since ending our time in Pullman. Relationships, wounds, fears, habits, and expectations, which only the Lord could mend, have been healed. I struggle to not minimize the leaps our life has taken for fear that it’s just an illusion that I will soon discover the secret too. But by doing so I’m putting our Lord in a box, settling to the idea that God cannot work beyond the premises I deem possible.

Home is now Silverdale, Washington. Though it’s no Pullman, our current opinion and feelings towards the area are greater now than they were. Even so, I’d be putting my own existence in a box if I were to measure all life experiences up to one another. It has been exhausting feeling like Chris and I am starting over, but I’ve learned after this weekend that that’s not true at all. This life has only one beginning, which falls on the day we found Christ. We aren’t at a new start, but rather we are merely continuing the journey. Through grace we learn from our experiences and are capable of growing past them in each place life takes us. We aren’t starting over, we are growing stronger and deeper because we find God in the center, the constant. In roughly three months we’ll be making a transition grander than moving from Pullman to Silverdale, Silverdale to Japan. The Lord opened up an opportunity to us that was originally closed off and unattainable. He is calling us to go, for reasons we do not know. Christopher has a general purpose that is our means for going, but we both know our Lord has reason and intent beyond our own speculations and inquiries.

After Japan Chris will go back to the shipyard to finish up his two-year training, while my life upon returning is not so concrete or directed. We will have to, again, orientate ourselves to a community that we barely knew before leaving and will have to decide, once again, on where for life. For now, the Lord is taking us places and our responsibility is to seek Him, put our faith and trust in Him, and to live a life that gives no one doubts that we love our Lord. We are to live and love selflessly, investing in those around us wherever we may go and forever long (or short) it may be. Christopher and I are blessed to have experienced the legacy in Pullman, Washington, and now it is our turn to take it with us as we go.

One Month In

The last month has been one of the most humbling periods of my life. For the last month I have been living with my husband in our very recent marriage. There is no sensing indicator that a marriage is new, there is no new car smell or the undeniable satisfaction new socks feel on your feet. The newness of a marriage is based off the number of days, weeks, or years a couple has been married, and that waivers to one side or the other depending on the audience and their history. Needless to say there is no template or universal gauge of when a marriage is no longer new, as like when a car’s new car smell goes away or when your new socks no longer stand out among the others in the sock drawer. A couple’s perspective on their marriage also may not match that of others on the outside of the relationship. However, for our situation, being only classified as married for a shy 30 days, I believe that anyone would agree that our marriage is new.

For the five months between Christopher finishing up grad school and starting his career at the shipyard his days mainly consisted of putting around Pullman, searching and apply for jobs, making phone calls, and serving me. I was wrapping up my last semester at WSU, stressing more than not about finishing strong, and had little to no free time. Since Chris was the one without the tight and delicate schedule, he took it upon himself to serve me consistently. There would be nights that Chris would tuck me into bed and the next morning I would wake up to a sparkling clean kitchen, he would surprise me with coffee at work or class on the days he knew I was struggling to stay awake because I was up incredible late the night before, mind you, he would stay awake with me during my late night studies. One time Chris came over at 05:00 to help me study before an exam, he tested me on flash cards, even gave my friends and I spelling tests of the countries we had to memorize. I cannot even recall the number of papers I have sent to him during those four months that he proof read and commented on, and then sent back to me. He made my group’s powerpoint presentations work, drove me everywhere around Pullman, held me when I was sad or stressed, cooked dinners and helped make desserts for parties. Chris was the one that spent hours upon hours creating our wedding invitations and my graduation announcements. Chris even cleaned my bathroom the morning before my mom and sister came to visit while I was in class. For four months this man, now my husband, selflessly served me hand and foot.

For the last month we have been married, and during that time Chris has been waking up at 05:00, leaving the apartment at 06:19, getting home at roughly 16:45, and aiming to be in bed by roughly 22:00. More times than not I have been up later finishing up cleaning, cooking, or baking, and sleeping in past him to make up for the hours. During the day I do laundry, sweep, dust, cook, buy groceries, and organize our home. I make sure Chris has giant muffins to bring to work for snack and hearty meals for lunch to keep his mind awake and body eager to learn. Our roles have reversed; I am now the one serving Chris, this being my primary activity of the day, while he is out working to provide for our new family. I can sit here and say that I love being a homemaker, staying at home cooking and cleaning, being dressed up in a cute apron and pearls when my husband comes home, but that would make me a liar and also cause me to throw up in my mouth a little. Instead it has been a frustratingly humbling experience learning to take care of and serve someone other than myself. Wednesday is wash the sheets and clean the bathrooms (yes, two bathrooms) day. Chris considers me a germaphobe, I have not agreed to this, but I also have not denied it. When it comes to cleaning a bathroom, I get incredible dedicated to the details, which results in taking up my entire afternoon. Before I know it is Wednesday again, and between last Wednesday and this Wednesday I have been on my feet all day everyday trying to put a home together yet it feels like I have no progress to show for it. Currently the apartment looks livable, yet there is an entire spare room that should have yellow caution tap and a ‘do not enter’ sign posted upon it, padlocks wouldn’t be that ridiculous of an addition either.

Serving does not come naturally to me. I have no idea how Christopher willingly served me for four months. I want to be a good wife and to serve my husband and though I have not entirely found joy in doing so, I continue out of obedience to our faithful Lord. I did not expect to be good at marriage right from the start, it’s a learning processes, and it takes time. Being an educator I am fully aware that it takes some longer than others and that with some subjects, some time frames for achievement are ridiculously unachievable and unrealistic. I am learning to coexist with someone else and to focus my days on someone other than my own self. Learning of your own selfish and self-centered ways is painfully humbling but necessary for growth and progression. I love my husband and I love my Lord and with that I have my purpose and direction. It would be unfair and close-minded of me to put our Lord in a box by believing marriage doesn’t get better with time. That would contradict the glory of God that I know. I am thankful for Christopher and the ways the Lord has blessed us thus far, even if those blessing consist of revealing to me the ugliness and weaknesses of my heart.

And here begins the journey…