NOT THE SAME

There is a picture, which sits in the middle of my office desk here at FNC.  It is a picture of my family.  No color, just black and white and was taken in the summer of 2012. Along the bottom reads, “The Gilliland’s…Life is adventure together.”  The girls look so small, and I guess at that time, they really were. Wendy and I both look a bit younger, and maybe some days a lot younger.  Six years shouldn’t make much of a difference in the grand scheme of it all. I can’t say it’s the case for us. The past six years have turned our world upside down and inside out.  With out a doubt, we have all changed in one way or the other.  Truth be told, some good and some not so good. 

Living in a different culture long term takes a toll on a person, and the same toll is taken upon the family as well.  We’ve ever been asked, “When did you hear the call to go?”  The girls have their own version, which is pretty much spot on, “We didn’t really have a say.”  Wendy and I typically tell the story of a particular moment in the car where God spoke to us indirectly through one of Oswald Chamber’s devotionals sent to me by a long time friend.  That said, no one, or nothing called us to Uganda, not clearly and directly as far as we can recall.  

Over the years we’ve been awe struck by others stories who were “called” to go, and specifically to Uganda.  Every time I hear them, I seem to wonder if we really were called or not.  We’ve never heard a voice, never had a word (at least like others have had), yet here we are, in Uganda doing our best (most of the time) to serve and love the people God has placed along side this adventure. 

 As I continue to stare at the picture, I see five smiling faces, ready to go, fearless, yet wondering what’s to come.  Outwardly we have changed, but inwardly we have changed all the more.  Two of the three little ones have crossed the line into little women, with the third one being almost there.  For all of us, the things we used to worry about or be challenged with have drastically changed.  The concerns of life are different.  Our lenses have been forever changed.  Normal has broken to pieces and put back together with a new.  We’ve learned to live and not just survive.  We’ve learned God is here even when it looks like He’s not. Oh, we are not the same.       

But maybe, just maybe, that’s the point of it all…not what we are doing, but what God is doing in us.