Christmas has been different for the last two years. We spent the first alone and the second with one of our adult children and his family, two others having moved across the country. Where once people crossed a continent to get to the “Eureka!” state, many now are leaving for better opportunities and lower cost of living elsewhere. We didn’t try to talk our adult children out of leaving (though our hearts sank at the news). Afterall, we tried to leave California years ago for similar reasons. Man plans, but God prevails, and God made it clear He wanted us here.
We considered following. We “put out the fleece” and made an offer on a house, then another, and finally a third. Each fell through – bad foundations, a reluctant seller, request for a l-o-n-g escrow – and we knew God still wants us here. We are “native” Californians – born and reared in Alameda County, transplants to Sonoma, and leaving would not have been easy.
All this got me thinking about other family members who had to make decisions about whether to stay or leave “home”. My grandma Wulff left Switzerland at fifteen, lived and worked in France and England before sailing across the Atlantic where she met my grandpa in Canada. He was a German who left his homeland after WW1. They moved to the Central Valley of California. Rick’s Grandma Johnson left Sweden alone at eighteen, sailed across the Atlantic, came through Ellis Island and crossed the country to California where she met Rick’s grandpa, a handsome young man who had been sailing the seven seas since the age of ten.
My dad’s grandparents left Nebraska and traveled by wagon to Colorado. Dad moved to California for better opportunities, worked in a hospital where he met my mom, an RN, and they moved to Pleasanton and built their home from the ground up, literally, then later moved to Oregon.
It’s not easy to leave family behind, especially in those times when mail traveled by train and ship to get to the destination. Grandma and Grandpa Johnson never saw their parents again and only saw a few siblings when they were able to make a trip home for a visit. My grandmother never saw her parents again either. When she returned to Switzerland (at 86) for a visit, she found a brother she thought long dead.
When people sought better opportunities for themselves and their children, it often meant never seeing beloved family members again – and hearing only infrequently through a letter that came across an ocean by ship and the continent by train.
Oh, how blessed we are to live in a time when we have Facetime and texting, pictures sent and received in seconds. We can see and talk with our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren frequently. We can be part of their lives no matter how many miles are between us.
In truth, we are also connected in another way that defies distance. Every family member who has accepted Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord has received the Holy Spirit who connects us to God and even to those who have passed on. All those relatives and friends from generations past are buried here, but alive in Christ, and Scripture says they are witnesses, cheering us on as we live this life. God has made all believers a family of millions who will someday gather for a great feast in heaven with our Father and His Son, Jesus.
Oh, what a reunion that will be!