The Marvelous Flight of Cara: Long-distance relationships;

You know what I don't write about nearly enough? Long distance relationships. Not the dating kind, because those have a pain all their own (Dan and I spent the first two months of our courtship 2,500 miles apart), but the family kind. The kind where your niece is growing up somewhere in the country and your biggest fear is that she won't know you; that your brother, your dear big brother, is in the Army and over in Afghanistan for a year, so of course your relationship with him has gotten better and been deeper than it ever has before; that your parents, your two best friends in the world who have always been there for you and who love you more than anything in the universe, are 2,500 miles away still back in Pennsylvania, and the tears are officially coming now. That your sister-in-law and you never have been really close, but how you want to be, and how the distance makes it that much harder; that your two best friends in the galaxy who just so happen to be married to each other are in a different country, and are going through pregnancy without you, and how you're longing to just touch the baby bump and pray over the momma and dear little bean all the time.

It is so difficult, so painful, and I have no idea why God allows it. How I wish He would just let my favorite man on the planet aka my hubs, and I to live in a small village with our dearest friends and family, and to be protected from sin and sickness... er, I guess that's called Heaven. But please Lord, I would like that sometime during this life on this side of eternity. I trust Your perfect plan; I trust your transformation in all of those I love lives and how your two biggest desires are for Your glory and for us to be more like Christ. Thank you for the privilege to suffer with you.

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