I have been thinking a lot lately about identity – probably because we are getting ready to make a pretty big move and I have been day dreaming about what our life might look like in California…which inevitably leads you to thinking about what your life looks like now and has looked like in the recent past. We have had 10 years worth of memories in the past 4 years it seems like. We married and honeymooned. We have birthed babies, they have rolled over, learned to crawl and walk – all the major baby milestones. We’ve bought a house and a minivan. We’ve traveled across the country. Got a dog. There have been family deaths and births and weddings. We have almost graduated. These are just a few of the things that come to my mind. All Olivia and Joseph know is St. Louis. They have grown up at the botanical garden and in the park. They have learned and compensated for all the various hazards in our house at different times. They know the sounds of a shop vac, air compressor, and nail gun. They don’t think twice when the monthly tornado siren runs its test. They recognize the sound of the ice cream truck, but because I am a horrible mother they have no idea what it is. I ask Joseph if he wants to go to the garden and he says, “Anka and Yowen?” (translation: Annika and Lauren – I think he thinks they live there). They know their peeps and where to meet them. Olivia asks anyone who is around at a meal time if they want to stay to eat. This is her home – she is comfortable in it and she is always wanting to know who is coming over – tonight she nearly cried when we told her we weren’t having small group. And I nearly cry every time I think of her being in California without her best buddy.
Who are we? So much of who it feels like we (the McBrides) are is here. It is different with our biological families. Mike and I have been away from home and independent for a long time. Our relationship with our families has been long distance since college almost – not distant, just long distance (well, except for that first few years of college when Mike never called his mother). So, in some ways I am less nervous about leaving family – we know how to love each other long distance. We certainly don’t always do it as well as we should and it will certainly be a little trickier this far a way…but it isn’t unfamiliar to us - we will figure it out. What is harder for me to get used to is the venue change for our little family. In a lot of ways it feels like this rehabbed house and this park and this garden and these neighbors and this church and these friends are who we are. They have influenced so much of what we have become the past 3 ½ years. How we see beauty and God’s creation. How we understand our own weakness and sin. What we love and think is funny. How we understand the Gospel. What we value. Olivia thinks about life in terms of who she will see today and where we will go – and she has specific things and people in mind. She and Joseph can both tear off through the house without turning on a single light if we get home after dark – this is their home and they know it. What happens when all that is familiar changes? When the dark is scary because it isn’t familiar anymore. When you don’t know who to call to meet at the Garden after breakfast. When there is nobody hanging over the back fence to invite to supper. I know it isn’t all this dramatic – we aren’t moving to the middle of the desert. We will meet people and make friends – if we don’t the whole church planting thing probably won’t go so well. But when you are a young family all these beginning experiences are so formative. You are trying to establish who you are going to be as a family – traditions, values, parenting philosophy, routine. You don’t realize how much your physical environment informs some of these things until that environment is about to change.
I’m not hopeless when I think about these things – though I am a bit emotional – no surprise to most of you. This (present) earth is not our home and yet God has placed us in it and given us these years to make our way in it. In some ways I am thankful for this major upheaval as it reminds us where the only permanent truths lie – in our union with Christ – in his perfect life, sacrificial death, and victorious resurrection. Whether in St. Louis or in California we still belong to him – our sin has still been atoned for and his Holy Spirit is still at work in us. I used to get a little annoyed when people would answer questions of insecurity and doubt with “don’t forget your identity is in Christ.” It seemed trite. Maybe saying it that way is trite (to me), but the truth of it sure isn’t. This Easter season I am thankful for a risen Savior who is the same yesterday, today, and forever even when everything in my life is about to be different.
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