This morning I sent off my only son and his sweet wife to work and make their home in a foreign land.  Today they loosed the ties that bound them to the land of their birth to plant their lives in an unfamiliar land in order to be obedient to the call of God upon their lives.

The thought that it would be 4 years before they would be home again was overwhelming.  To make it worse, my grandchildren would likely be born during that time.  This thought and the thought of such a great distance separating me from my son tore at my heart.

The fiery darts were volatile.  Thoughts such as:  

You won’t ever have a relationship with your son’s children like you do with your daughter’s children. You need time to make memories with them and you simply won’t have that opportunity.

Your grandchildren won’t even know their American relatives or that they are Americans.

You’d better snap out of your grief soon or you’ll blow your testimony.

 Your son has never been this far away before. This is more than you can bear.

Your grief will drive others away from wanting to totally surrender their children to God.

That’s the bad news.  The good news is that I KNOW the nature of these thoughts.  They are prime examples of fiery dart thinking.  You know, just being able to label those thoughts as fiery darts spared me the misery of the affect they would have had on me.  Because my lessons on fiery darts have spared me from the bondage of such thinking, I am free to process the pain of being separated by a mighty big ocean from my son and am able to work through my grief in a healthy and healing manner.

Am I free of the pain of my grief?  No, not yet!  But as you will read in my new blog, I am dealing with it in an honest dialog with God.  God is being faithful as is always the case with Him and day by day I am growing stronger.

I would invite my readers to check out my new blog:

http://missionarysmom.wordpress.com