Miles to go before I sleep

A few days ago, I was thinking of the good-byes we had already said.
Then I realized all we still have left to finish. 

LA and girls at our first Christmas overseas, Lydia still a bun in the oven

You see, we have lived in the Middle East for 8 years now, but this time we hear a voice in our hearts--which we believe to be God leading us--telling us it is time to move back to the US.  We have a new job to do; maybe it is a continuation of the one we started here, or maybe something altogether different. We shall see--

So, I'm thinking...


Wow, we have been saying goodbye to many friends that can't fully understand why we are leaving. Being Arab, their hearts respond first, then their heads chime in with reason.  They are a wonderfully passionate people who can really cook well, BTW! They do hear us when we say we love them and their country, but it is time for us to leave. My husband's friend even tried to pull together all the men of influence in his life to have an intervention of sorts--to plead with him, and persuade him not to leave.  Apparently this works sometimes--but not with us. Not when you've sensed a "niggling" (is that really a word?) in your heart and prayed about what to do. When you know it is God speaking to you about a direction for the future, no intervention, or "juha" as it is named here, can get in your way.

That is when, from the depths of my memory, Robert Frost's poem came to my mind.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

By Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

----------------------
If the woods were my home here in the Middle East for 8 years, and my little horse "thinking it queer" are all the wonderful family and friends who had a difficult time seeing us relocate to our "house in the woods" for this season, then it also seems likely that I can make a final parallel in saying goodbye.  I loved the last stanza about how the woods are lovely, but, indeed, promises have to be fulfilled and I do have to move on before I sleep.  We must move on the next place and finish our lives well--fulfilling our promises to God and obeying.

And sometimes, I just focus on the "miles to do before I sleep" part as the long to-do list. It is 12:30 am here and I am wide awake typing, so .....yeah.... I'm afflicted.

Girls all grown up after 8 years...

The Woods here have been good to us, yet--rather more like a desert wouldn't you say?



additional poetry notes for the nerds out there:

Frost wrote the poem in June, 1922 at his house in Shaftsbury, Vermont.  He had been up the entire night writing the long poem "New Hampshire" and had finally finished when he realized morning had come. He went out to view the sunrise and suddenly got the idea for "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening". He wrote the new poem "about the snowy evening and the little horse as if I'd had a hallucination" in just "a few minutes without strain." --notes taken from Wikipedia

Bye, Ya'll!!!

I'm Texas bound in one week, but eating felafel and hummus every other day until then.