in the next 5 years

While on this adventure I left South Carolina and headed to North Carolina to visit a good friend. He's actually like my big brother, his name is TJ and I met him on my second trip to Africa. Mission trips seem to be the place where I find friends that tend to stick there, no matter what that looks like. 

During my road trip, I found myself thinking a lot about life of course. I mean who wouldn't think about life while they are driving 5 hours in a car alone. But, really it was the such a good break. I prayed, I laughed to myself, I created jokes, I made up games. I have a really funny way of saying Subaru, they are seriously everywhere in those two states, those and kayaks. When I got to TJs I got to meet his sweet momma- she was precious. Southern, tiny and loved to smile. She was so welcoming. I looked around the house and saw pictures of TJs dad who passed away 5 years ago. 

I looked at the pictures and smiled like I knew the man. He seemed to have a heart of gold. His widowed wife still talked about him like he was alive. She would tell stories and just smile. My heart broke for her. Now it was time to meet his sister and her family. She is married and has a 16 & 17 year old. I was nervous to meet them at first because I'm always nervous to meet people at first. I just tend to push through it-- I met them and it was immediate family. I was one of them. We all laughed, ate dinner and then crowded around the tv for 24, it was there weekly thing. They didn't put on a show for me and I liked that. They were real people. With real lives.

The next day was an adventure day, we went to hike a mountain and see a couple of waterfalls- during this trip we went back and forth with question on life. The one that seemed to stick 'where do you see yourself in 5 years?' We were sitting over a small cliff and I got asked the hardest question for me to ever answer. I looked down and thought "I could jump and run away from the question, only to break an arm and think about it while sitting in an ambulance or I could just answer it'-- the question tends to make my mind wonder a bit. It always has.  I answered the question of course with a broad statement of 'be a teacher'. But really my thought process went deeper than that but I pushed it aside as the day went on. 

My couple of days in North Carolina were packed, I felt like a local. I saw downtown. I ate things famous only in the area. I saw where Dale Earndhart lived. I walked around a lake. I hiked a mountain. I had breakfast at the small round table with TJ and his mom. I felt like I was her daughter and he was my brother. Maya Angelo died while I was in town so we saw her house. I saw the rich neighborhood. I saw it all. 

There are a couple of thoughts that I kept having over and over::

'it's funny how Jesus places people who become family in your life'

'where do I wanna be in 5 years'

'How did this sweet lady lose her husband and yet she still smiles'

Those thoughts replayed and replayed. So, I thought about them at night before bed or while we were riding around town. 

Here I was in a complete new place with a dude I met a year ago on a mission trip to Africa. Here I was with my 'big brother.'

Next thought, where do I want to be in 5 years?! Are you joking me?! Am I really supposed to answer that? I got a little bit of an answer, I want to be exactly where Jesus wants me to be. Of course that's the 'quick' answer, but our human brain takes over. I'm not going to go into detail about my next 5 years- it's too sappy. 

Next thought, I've never lost anyone super close to me. I have had friends who have and I never know what to say so I just pray for them. I hug them and I do anything they need- but for some reason I thought of Mrs. Joyce, as she walked out of her bedroom fully dressed with a long necklace and a gold ring dangling from it, I asked what it was and she told me it was her husbands and she smiled. My thoughts that come with this: that's the sweetest thing I've seen. She loved this man so much that she lived her life with him, she gave birth to two children with him there, I heard of a story where he use to pick her up during the meteor showers put her in the truck and take her to a dark field and they would just watch it, she loved him and then she had to watch cancer steal his life. She had to no only cry for herself, but for her kids and grand kids who just lost wamhat seemed to be an incredible man. 

So I'm sure when people asked her at a young age, where do you want to be in 5 years? She never invented for life to unfold the way it did, but she is handling the life she has been given the best way she knows how by loving Jesus and her family so much. They call her Gran and now I call her Gran. Her heart is beautiful and if I have a smidgen of the love that she has for her husband, my husband will be a very lucky man.