Less than 4 weeks till Christmas!!.. and I'm having trouble getting excited this year.  Instead, I feel my heart sink a little as it gets closer each day.

This will be our third Christmas in Peru, and as much fun as it has been celebrating Christmas peruvian style with the Casa de Paz kids, (if you want to know what Christmas in Peru has been like for us, read our post titled Feliz Navidad) I do miss my Canadian family a little extra much around this time of year, and I had a different picture in mind for this Christmas...

This was supposed to be the Christmas we spend with family and friends in Canada, (possibly the last Christmas we spend with them).. this was supposed to be the Christmas where I finally get to meet my two new nieces, and new nephew.. this was supposed to be Tahlias's first time experiencing snow. This was supposed to be a white Christmas. cold and snowy outside, but warm and toasty inside with the whole family gathered together at mom & dad's, eating familiar food, sipping on Tim Hortons coffee, watching the cousins play, catching up with the sisters, looking at pictures of my brother's wedding that I missed, exchanging gifts..etc etc

Ever since last Christmas this is how I pictured this Christmas being.  I have been looking forward to it all year. But it wasn't until sometime in October that I realized (or accepted) that my dream of Christmas 2014 was not going to happen.
God had a different plan, and had been speaking to me and Jake a few months earlier than October already, but I didn't like what He was saying, so I kept pushing it aside.
We looked at buying tickets at least few different times, but every time we either got interrupted somehow, had a poor internet connection, or it just didn't feel quite right. God had something to do with that, I'm sure.

As Christmas got closer, family kept messaging asking when are you coming? Do you have your tickets yet? And we kept them hoping for a long time, saying that we were still praying about it. Well we were praying about it... We prayed for Tahlia's Canadian citizen to be here on time, we prayed for the right people to be lined up to take care of the orphanage while we're away, we prayed for good deals on tickets, we prayed for dates and times and about how long we should stay...We did pray about it, but didn't pray much about whether it was even God's plan for us to go at all. I guess I had just assumed that my desire to go was God's way of saying that's what He wanted for us too. Psalms 37:4 Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart, right?  Yes that's what the scripture says, but I realized I am still learning what it truly means to delight in the Lord. I'm learning that to delight in the Lord means to live and seek His will (not mine) and that it means to seek first His kingdom.. it means going after God's own heart and our spirits being so in tune with His Spirit that our desires line up perfectly with His. It is more about heavenly things than earthly things, it's finding joy in Him alone.
That being said, doesn't mean that I am perfect at delighting in the Lord, and it doesn't mean that it's always easy and that I will never fall. We still live in flawed bodies of flesh in a broken world where living a Godly life is like constantly swimming against the current. We live in a world where because we know Jesus, we are richly blessed, but where knowing Him also means pain and heartache, and sacrifice.

I came across a quote awhile ago that said "You will never be completely at home again, because part of your heart will always be elsewhere. That is the price you pay for the richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place."

Oh how true that is! And although when I first read this I was thinking of being torn between our two families in Canada and Peru, I know that my heart is also longing for another place - my ultimate home - Heaven. Thank God that this earth is only temporary! So my hope is in this. Whether I never see my family again, or if we were to go back to Canada and never see our peruvian family again, or even if somehow we were to find a way to all be together in the same place on this earth, my heart will never stop longing for another place until we are all together in our eternal home. And what a glorious day that will be!