Irrational Fears

(Not in any particular order)

1. Crystal, Beverly and the Kajiji Girls will never forgive me for leaving for 10-12 months and our friendship will suffer.

2. Someone - terrorists, Lybia, radical Muslims, anyone - will bomb Paris (or take over the city) and we won't be able to get home.

3. The U.S. economy will collapse while we are gone and then what?

4. Someone else will start leading my Thursday night Bible study group and do a better job.

5. My Thursday night Bible study group won't keep meeting and won't want to meet anymore when I get back.

6. We won't have enough money to do this or we will only have enough to get there and survive - which means we won't get to go anywhere or see anything while we are there.

7. Everyone will hate us because we are Americans.

8. My children will be traumatized to be ripped away from their friends and need therapy at some point as a result.

9. Something will happen to my mom or dad while we're there and I won't be able to do a darn thing to help or support them.

10. P&S will hate it here so much that they insist on breaking the contract and coming home early.

I will post more as they occur. Actually, I could keep going now, but certainly don't want to send myself headlong into a full-blown irrational panic attack. Apparently I have no lack of supply in this department. But at least I still have a sense of humor about it. I'll be the first to call myself a neurotic, Type A, OCD head case.

(Go ahead. Feel badly for my poor husband. He deserves the sentiment.)

Qu'est ce que je pense?

What am I thinking?!

This week I went to my monthly French-Meet-Up meeting. This is a meeting of french-speakers (or in my case french-speaker wannabes) who gather for the purpose of chatting "en francais." I should have known I would come away feeling utterly discouraged about making it in France for a year! I stumbled and bumbled along, utterly incapable of conjugating a verb to save my life, with the vocabulary recall of someone in a catatonic state. It was frightful indeed.

Then, when I got home, I was greeted by David with, "Have you considered how isolated you will be? I mean, you might be able to talk to your friends with Skype, but they're all going to get sick of hearing about your escapades in France all the time. What are you going to do? No one else is going to be sharing your experience with you?"

David is absolutely right and his concern shows just how deeply he gets me. I truly am all about community and shared experiences. So much so that sometimes I wonder if a tree fell in the woods and I was the only one to witness it, would it have really happened? And here we are, working towards a year which will start (and has the risk of remaining) totally in isolation, where not only do we not know anyone for thousands of miles, but we also don't speak the language. I like to kid myself that I do, but this week was a good reality check. I don't.

I know this should cause me to wake up and face the facts. We really are mildly insane for doing this. Thankfully God, as usual, is one step (if not all steps) ahead of us and has already addressed this. I would love to say He has pre-supplied an amazing community of like-minded families for us in France. He hasn't (that I know of). Instead, He has me studying "A Woman's Heart, God's Dwelling Place" by Beth Moore in the midst of our preparations. Last week's teaching revealed a truth I have struggled with for a long time. God has created us each with a "With-Need," meaning we all have a need to be WITH Him. What gets us into trouble is when we try to fill this void by simply being with other people. Boy, am I guilty of this! As I listened to Beth Moore elaborate on this point, I really sensed God tugging at me.

Erin, I want to fill the "with-need" in you. True, I made you to need others. But I made you to need Me more. It's time for you to acknowledge that. For the next year, no matter who you meet, no matter who you don't, I will be with you. I will be your community. I will be your support. I will be your supply and your portion. I will be your listening ear, your strong shoulder, your sounding board, your adviser. Trust Me. You can do this. With Me.

So we forge ahead. And if the worst thing to come of this is I don't make a single new French friend, but I draw closer to my family and I draw closer to my Father, so be it. Bring it on.

Ca c'est ce que je pense.