For years after our wedding we moved from state to state -- Wisconsin, Ohio, Kansas, California, Ohio, and finally settling in Minnesota in July 2005. The china, crystal and flatware never moved with us, but was in storage and stayed secure in a solid pine chest (also from our wedding) until we bought the home in Farmington. We had never used any of it, never taken out of the boxes on holidays or special occasions. My plan was this: when we would find the perfect dream home, the much bigger house that would fit a beautiful china hutch and the matching huge dining room table, we would bust it all out and use it all of the time. Right. Good plan.
Last year right around this time, when I was feeling the stirring, Steph started bugging me about selling the stuff... our precious china. It seemed crazy, and I wasn't having it, but I listened to him (with one ear anyway, while the other was tuning him out).
We returned to Swaziland in December, and I think we were both feeling that something big was happening. On the plane as we returned home, Steph said, "Will you sell the china, crystal and flatware if we are called to Africa?" There was no question. It would be gone.
February 1st, 2010. The date that we knew our lives were pointing to Africa, that we were going to sell it all, including everything in the pine chest. The ad went up on Craigslist, and since then, amazing things have happened. We've sold every ounce of it -- not in our timing, but in His. And the people we have been blessed to meet has been incredible. Of course they have ginormous hearts for Africa. God wouldn't have it any other way. One lived in Tanzania as a boy, and the other attends a church that supports Swaziland in amazing ways through World Vision.
Sure, we haven't gotten really what we originally wanted for the china, crystal, and flatware -- if you sit down and really do the math. These were wedding gifts, and they meant a lot to us. However, in a lot of ways, this china was my "precious" and probably the one thing I was clinging to -- part of my beautiful American dream. But letting all of this go, THAT has been amazing. It's like God was saying, "Krista... let it go. You have no idea what awaits you, what plans I have for you, but you need to let it go."
And so, I did. We do. We let it all go.
The blessing of trading china for Africa -- it's incredible.
"Hold everything in your hands lightly. Otherwise it hurts when God pries your fingers open."
