{"id":3416,"date":"2013-07-18T03:44:00","date_gmt":"2013-07-18T03:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=3416"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:35:31","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:35:31","slug":"leaving-houses-and-beds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=3416","title":{"rendered":"Leaving Houses … and Beds"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

One afternoon early last week during our cross cultural training we took the time to discuss transitioning from home to the mission field.\u00a0 The seminar leader had a useful diagram to help us envision this emotionally charged period: a bridge from the known to the unknown.\u00a0 The water below the bridge was labeled \u201cCHAOS\u201d!\u00a0 Spot on!\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

The kids\u2019 programming sometimes mirrors the adults\u2019 and so we weren\u2019t surprised last Thursday night when, an hour after the kids had been put to bed, Melissa and I found Samuel \u2026 happy-go-lucky, monkey-boy Sammy \u2026 quietly crying on the couch upon our return from a quiet walk around the OMS campus.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

He was unable to sleep because he was thinking about his bed \u2026 the one in our old house.\u00a0 The house where we haven\u2019t lived for two years now.\u00a0 That bed was special to him because I built it.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"\"\/
(Caleb slept on the upper platform \nand Samuel slept on the lower.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

\u00a0And watching those tears roll down his cheeks, it was all I could do to not join him in crying.<\/p>\n\n\n

So the three of us talked about how that bed and hundreds of other good memories were a blessing from God.\u00a0That God had been so very gracious to us in the past and would undoubtedly continue to be into the future.\u00a0 We noted that the good part of leaving friends behind is that you get to keep those friends AND add new ones that you would have never met if you had stayed put.<\/p>\n\n\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

Melissa recently\u00a0reminded us of Christ’s words and a sweet and precious promise:<\/p>\n\n\n

“Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel,\u00a0who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.”\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (Mark 10:29-30)<\/span><\/span>That’s a promise we’re going to stand on!<\/p>\n\n\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One afternoon early last week during our cross cultural training we took the time to discuss transitioning from home to the mission field.\u00a0 The seminar leader had a useful diagram to help us envision this emotionally charged period: a bridge from the known to the unknown.\u00a0 The water below the bridge was labeled \u201cCHAOS\u201d!\u00a0 Spot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3417,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3416"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3418,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3416\/revisions\/3418"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}