Further Up, Further In

“I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now...Come further up, come further in!”

― C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle

This passage in The Last Battle changed my life. Something clicked into place the moment I read it–I understood, perhaps for the first time, that while I have the best family in the world, and while I grew up in a beautiful house in a place that has such pretty seasons and I had all of the opportunity that a girl could need, I was looking for home. I was looking for that place where my soul was at rest, where joy was limitless, where life was full and beautiful. It’s not that I’d never caught  glimpses of this on a warm summer’s day, or surrounded by my family or close friends–on the contrary, those fleeting moments, full of love and satisfaction, made me hunger for more.

I saw that I’d sought to find this home in the books that I’d read or in the recesses of my imagination, where I could be free from my own awkwardness and the toils of life, where I could care about what was important to me and not worry about the rest, because consequences have a way of dissolving when we’re stuck inside our own heads. But as my head sequestered me away from the pains of life, I lost the joys as well, and I ended up sitting on the sidelines of reality.

Later, in college, I would spend time searching for home in the people around me, trying to find that perfect balance of caring and being cared for. And this worked wonderfully, as long as things weren’t actually that hard. But when so many things fell apart, I retreated, and I found myself nearly alone.

Since college, I’ve spent an inordinate amount of emotional energy looking for home in my contributions to society–if I could use all of my gifts to full capacity on a daily basis through the perfect job or volunteer work, then surely I will have arrived? Surely then I will be satisfied?

But every time I look somewhere new, I am disappointed, because the fact is, I’m not home.

“But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.”

― Philippians 3:20-21

Where did Lewis’s characters find their home? Not here! Life on Earth had to end in order for them to find the place that they’d never realized they’d been longing for. I spend a lot of time expecting this life to be what it can’t be. I have such high expectations of this world that I so very often miss the beauty that is before my eyes, and I pass over opportunities to be satisfied in my heart and in my soul. At the same time, I grow weary of facing the pains and injustices that I see and feel because I’ve forgotten that there is more than this world. So often, I find that I’ve lost hope.

As we get settled here, I will be sorely tempted to seek out that sense of home in travel and exploration, the building of new relationships, and in being a mom. But while it’s true that a taste of home can be found in the midst of all of those pursuits, this is only because this world and the people in it, with the capacity of different kinds of relationships, were created by the one and only homemaker. He’s the one who can give me that joy and that satisfaction, and he could do so if I never traveled, never had a kid, never made the best of friends. He is the one who gives those things whatever wonder they have. And so, as we write our silly tales of cultural adjustment, travel mishaps and parenting faux pas, we’ll be looking for the wonder beyond what meets the eye–that glimpse of home in a strange, strange world.

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

― Philippians 4:4-8

Hopes and Fears

“Are you CRAZY?!? Why would you want to move to England? Don’t you love your family???”

-My Great Aunt

I’d been wondering where my penchant for direct communication came from! Upon hearing our announcement, most people have said things along the lines of “So exciting!” or “That’s my dream!” or “Will your kid have dual-citizenship???” (The answer to that, sadly, is “No.”), and I love those responses to our news, because they mirror our own enthusiasm.

But on the other hand, what I love about My Great Aunt’s response is that hers are the real questions. The questions that we’ve laughed and cried over, the questions that sit there, staring us in the face, even when we try to avoid them. I chuckle when they’re thrown at me, but the fact is that they are the hard questions.

They’re hard because I have spent periods of my life dancing around the edges of depression, because my love of travel and adventure originated in a young girl’s dream of escape, because there are few things more difficult than explaining to your mother that you love her more than anyone in the world, but that you’re almost certain that you will always be called to live far away. Making the decision to move was simple, but being content with it requires real answers for these questions. Otherwise, my heart will go running off to the next thing before I’ve even properly settled in the UK.

So maybe we are crazy, insane, off our rockers, nuts. But there’s more to it than that! So, we’ve decided to share with you some of our fears and the hopes that outweigh them, so that maybe you can understand a little bit of why we decided to move.

Fears

1)    Loneliness. The first year in a new place is generally...pretty horrible. Exciting, yes, but when the sheen of novelty has worn off, you’re left with something that is unfamiliar, uncomfortable, and sometimes downright depressing. You realize that you have no local support network and that, frustrating though your hometown may have been, at least you knew how to make an appointment to see the doctor or where to go when your car broke down. The deep and disappointing angst that accompanies this stage of a major transition doesn’t last forever, but it’s pretty lonely. And when I’m lonely, I tend to withdraw even more, neglecting to seek out relationships when I most need them.

2)    Being broke and stranded. In case you don’t know, London is expensive. Very expensive—and we’re accustomed to budgeting for Chicago, which has big city budget requirements of its own. Housing in particular is especially pricey, and it’s also the budget item that requires the most commitment. So, of course we’re nervous about having enough money, especially since we’re living on one income with a baby on the way. In Chicago, I always comforted my paranoia by remembering that if Soren lost his job or if we came upon a high-cost emergency situation, we could always try to find a subletter and stay with my parents until we figured things out.

I think we’re going to need a new backup plan.*

3)    Culture shock. Culture shock is a process, and in order to get to the end point (feeling at home in a new place), you have to go through the exciting and painful steps to get there. Sometimes you can move pretty quickly through the low moments, but you cannot escape them entirely. I have to say, as much as I want to be able to call London home, I’m not thrilled about what it’s going to take to get us there. That’s why we’d like to spend a minimum of two years in the UK—one year to do the basic adjustment, and at least one more year to enjoy our new home and to have the time and emotional space to fall even more deeply in love with it.

4)    Not actually getting to know non-Americans. Don’t get me wrong–we are going to love meeting and spending time with other American expats, and we’ll probably rely on them a lot! But given our many hopes for this move, it would be a shame if we left the US only to completely surround ourselves with other Americans. I don’t think we’d necessarily even be able to pull this off, to be honest, but it’s certainly easier to meet and connect with your own countrymen than to actually deal with the difficulty and awkwardness of international friendships.

Hopes

1)    We are excited to travel. London is a travel hub, and from there, it is incredibly easy to travel around Europe! We already have a visit to Oslo planned, and we look forward to being able to take quick trips to Paris or Munich or Stockholm or Rome--and depending on how much travel Soren ends up doing for work, we may even be able to combine work and play!

2)    London is a very green city. Discovering Jackson Park in Chicago was a lifesaver for me–I’ve never been an overwhelmingly “city girl”, but an evening stroll in an expansive park lets you forget, if even for a moment, the claustrophobia that can come with city life. And London has many such parks, with plenty of smaller parks and recreational areas, too. We’re hoping to live close enough to one of these green spaces that we can take walks and breathe some fresh air on a regular basis.

3)    ...And it has such a rich history! Castles, kings, ancient streets, and long-time traditions are part of life in London. As people who love to dig deeper, examining roots and observing changes, there is such an extensively recorded history in London that we could never reach the bottom of the barrel of fun facts, eccentric characters, and life lessons in the pages on London alone.

4)    There are churches and Christian communities that are thriving in London right now, but Christianity is not widely embraced. This bears some striking similarities to what we saw at UChicago during our time there, and we’re excited to see what God does to us and through us as we face these familiar circumstances in a new place and stage of life. We’re eager to get a better idea of how British Christians grapple with their faith and what issues are most important to them. We’re praying that God will give us plenty of opportunities to love our neighbors and to learn from them, that we would be pushed to more fully understand and marvel at and share who Jesus Christ really is.

5)    We’re eager to connect with a new community in London and to become “locals”. Living in London will give us the opportunity to see beyond Buckingham Palace and Big Ben, to have a favorite pub that we frequent or to master the use of “the Tube”. To stop putting “the Tube” in quotes. Because that’s what it is­–not someone else’s word for it, but ours. Chances are that we won’t come back with exciting accents (although our impressions may improve), but we hope that London leaves its mark on the way we think, the way we speak**, and the way our little boy sees the world.  

6)    We hope that spending a few years living abroad will really help us to think through whether international missions is what God has in store for us, because I (Janel) have never actually resided more than 5 miles from the western shores of Lake Michigan. Since I tend to be fairly vulnerable to emotional lows, we really want to see how well we adjust to being foreigners, and how well we handle the difficulties of a new life together. It is our intention for Soren to go to seminary at some point after we finish paying off our undergrad student loans, but we’d love to go in with an idea of whether we’re looking at international missions as a vocation or not.

7)    A British baby. Because why not?

We have never had any real doubt as to whether we would take the opportunity to move to London if it was presented to us. But once the move transitioned from a dream to our reality, we began to realize all that goes in to making such a crazy (yes, crazy) transition. The decision was simple, but the move is not easy. But this is mostly speculation—once we get off the plane (in about 20 minutes!!), the real adventure—with all of the misadventures therein—will begin!

*General Note: You may rest assured that the UK will kindly deport us if Soren does lose his job.

**Note to My Mother: Don’t worry, Mom; we’re not planning to abandon our aversion to using American profanity.

So long, Chicago

With eager excitement, half a dozen teens wandered around Old Town, taking in the newness of Chicago. The bustle, the quirkiness, the vastness. We climbed up Hancock Tower for an evening reception and took in a wide, unintelligible expanse of buildings and streets and rivers. It was enchanting, and a not a little intimidating, for our first week in the city.

And almost 7 years later, we climb the Sears Tower (checking off a box on our Chicago Bucket List) to see the city from above once more, knowing we are saying goodbye. I see a much different city now. The vast faceless mass of humanity is gone. In its stead are people we love, places I know, memories that are etched in my soul of what Chicago is and what it's given to us. I also see things that had gone unnoticed before, but I can explain and understand how they fit – even before we Wikipedia them on the way home.

It shows us where God has brought us, what he's shaped us into as we make this move.

We can just make out where the Green Line terminates, blocks from Living Hope Church in Woodlawn. And we see Ogden stretching out toward Lawndale and LCC, where Janel spent a summer. It jogs our minds of the tremendous lessons God has taught us about his kingdom and what Christian hope is. We remember the many fledgling attempts to participate in ministries on the South Side, like making pasta for the homeless in Nichols Park with our small groups, or the many long hours we tutored kids at schools with the Neighborhood Schools Program – wondering and praying and hoping that God would use our efforts for long term gains.

We've seen the value and difficulty of long term relationships, as God has shown us His kingdom being built all over the city, and He’s involved us in His work to build opportunities and connections for Living Hope to flourish. Through the faithfulness of our church family, we witnessed growing trust and mutual respect with the community – so central to any ministry – as more people come and say, "This is good. This is God's work." Chicago has an obsession with neighborhoods, people living side by side, growing together, and shaping a unique character and flavor of “Chicago-ness”. This has really seeped into my understanding of what Christian community is, through local churches meaningfully involved in their communities. Community like this isn’t easy. God has stretched us in a lot of hard ways, as we've ridden the ups and downs with our Intervarsity community, feeling the joy of seeing God open news eyes to his grace and experiencing the struggle of conflict dividing us. It's always hard to know what God is doing, but he taught us a lot about faithfulness, the limits of our abilities, and our reliance on His Body over and over again.

From the Tower, I can spy the masts atop Ratner, just a few blocks from that crazy apartment I shared with my brother and some friends for two years. We’ve had so many friends that fought with us, laughed with us, cried with us, and yet somehow we learned how to live it out – from hiking the AT to settling things with the Ragnarok. I'm reminded of the incredible gifts of both Janel's family and my own, some of whom lived in and around the city for our entire time. Amidst the cookouts, and camping trips, and new babies being born, it has been a tremendous time of love and really becoming friends above and beyond kinship. In all friendships, there’s a sense of incompleteness, like we’re building a road and we don’t know where it leads, but we hope its a road that brings us closer together. And who knows? It might bring us back this way. But for now, we are grateful for the way our friends have shaped us in adulthood.

Since college, it is these same friends and family that God’s used to teach me how amazing His provision is at times. I didn't know a thing about computers leaving college, so He prompted a friend at church to invite me to building an iPhone game (despite me knowing zero about computer programming). And my sister introduced me to my current team, and I’m really grateful for the opportunity to work with so many good friends there. A truly amazing team that has taught me so much about Chicago and the tech industry and that has pushed me to excel. I was stretched, but I learned a new way of seeing and approaching the world.

I have grown up in Chicago. As a kid, I was terrified of the future and the fear of failing at whatever it is. But God has taught me to know my limits and my strengths. From enduring the bitter winds of Chicago’s winters, to weeping over the loss of loved ones, He's broken me. But the joy and vision of His kingdom have made it worth it. He gave me the crazy love of my wife, who just won't let me forget who I am. He showed me the excitement of learning how to describe social phenomena – collective effervescence as a theory – and the far surpassing joy of living it out in surging multiethnic worship sessions led by friends in InterVarsity or at Living Hope. God has shown me His creation and my place within it.

Chicago, thanks for more than memories. God has filled both of our hearts with so many desires and values and hopes and visions through this amazing city. It's sad to say goodbye. But He calls us on to a new city and new people to meet.

See ya later.

The Prologue

Job 1:21b “The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”

The Lord Gives

That was my 2014. The year began on the heels of my grandmother’s passing, as Soren adjusted to his new job and I looked for one myself. We had finally begun to settle into our place in Chicago (read: I was finally beginning to accept that we’d chosen to stay in Chicago), and I was ready for my post-college ministry “sabbatical” to come to an end, so in February, I volunteered to help out with administrative tasks at our local church for 6 months, and hopefully do some other ministry on the side. I wouldn’t start until April, after I had finished a project at my old job, but I couldn’t wait to get started.

Just after I volunteered for this April-September stint, Soren was approached at work with a tantalizing proposition--

How would you like to relocate to London? We're putting together a new team there and we heard you've expressed interest in London…

Oh yes, he had expressed interest in moving to London. Over a year before, on our honeymoon trip, we had made a List of Dreams, and topping that list was “Spend a year in Europe”. Further discussion yielded the fact that a short-term relocation would be easiest in the UK (minimal language barrier), and London would be the most accessible area in the UK. Plus, London is a fantastic starting point if you’re interested in travelling around Europe, or pretty much anywhere, so it would obviously be perfect for us. So when, in late 2013, the company had added an early morning shift to support European clients, Soren’s first question was, “If I change shifts, do I eventually get to move there???”

Needless to say, Soren’s response to this new proposition was, “Yes!!! But my wife and I are committed to being here for the next 7 months. Can we still go?”

Periodic conversations in the following months estimated that we’d be set to move out around December or January, so we’d have plenty of time to tie up loose ends.

I took it upon myself to obsessively research every possible detail about moving to London (I do this with all major practical things--it’s my inner crazy). I learned about the fact that it costs an arm and two legs to live in London, I learned about Council Taxes and visas and TV licenses and The Tube and pubs and “pants”, and I even decided to watch Dr. Who, partly as a bonding tactic with my cousins, and partly for cultural investigation. That show is scary.

In all my research, the bottom line was that London is expensive and we’d need a salary bump or living stipend in order to pull off the move. But even to be in that kind of conversation with an international company was massively exciting, even intoxicating.

And then, we found out we were pregnant.

Number 2 on our List of Dreams was “Have 8 kids (lolz)”. Of course we had no idea whether we’d actually end up wanting 8 kids, but we have both always been interested in the idea of having a big family, so seeing those two lines in early July was a beautiful, joyous, exciting 2nd Anniversary gift for us. And, of course, at that point, my research madness was invigorated, but now I was voraciously imbibing books, articles, and weekly growth updates on our little Kiddo.

As we took a walk in the gorgeous Jackson Park one day, we gloried in the wonderful blessings of our current position: Soren loved his job, and my work at the church, especially during the summer kids’ program, had done much to restore my confidence in myself and my outlook on life. We had a baby on the way, an anticipated move to our dream location, and Soren had even been having conversations with a friend about freelancing his programming skills, which could be helpful financially in Chicago or abroad.

We had it all, and we even had so much that we thought about giving up on London (we were having a hard time getting details from the relevant parties, and we didn’t know if the offer would be good enough anyway), so we looked at 2-bedroom apartments in our Chicago neighborhood, and even found one that we loved at a reasonable price in a good location with a great landlord. But then we had an encouraging conversation about London, so when it came down to it, we weren’t ready to commit to a year-long lease. Not to mention the fact that the move would max out our budget, which wouldn’t be a great idea with a very expensive bundle of joy on the way.

Passing on the apartment, as it turns out, was a very good decision.

The Lord Takes Away

At my initial visit to the OB, my doctor did the usual first-visit checks, and told me that my previous heart condition placed me in the “high-risk” category, so I should get an early ultrasound. I wanted Soren to be there for all ultrasounds, so I requested that we schedule it for the next available day. So on the morning of Monday, July 28th, Soren and I excitedly drove to the hospital in anticipation of “meeting” our Kiddo. But mixed into the excitement was an undertone of anxiety. At over 8 weeks pregnant, I hadn’t had many symptoms, and even some of the symptoms I’d been having had been less noticeable for a couple of days.

The technician placed the probe on my belly, and before long, the screen showed a perfect little bean! What a beautiful thing! Our Kiddo was taking shape!

After taking some other measurements and looking at our Kiddo again, the technician said, “Um, you stay here. I need to go check on something.” We didn’t mind. We had seen our baby. In the 15 minutes that elapsed, though, we started to have doubts--what was taking her so long? Was there something wrong?

Another doctor walked in and sat down on the technician’s seat. In a kind voice, she introduced herself as a high-risk doctor. And then she told us that they had found no heartbeat, and that the baby was measuring 8 weeks 0 days, when it should have been 8 weeks 4 days. That early in the pregnancy, that was a big gap. All evidence pointed to one thing. Miscarriage.

Oh, how the tears flow. Hello and goodbye in a single breath. Silence. Silence in the soul. An utter cry and wailing.

I had a follow-up appointment the next day, with a new doctor because mine was on vacation, and she told me that I needed to have a D&C, a procedure where they remove the fetal tissue. “But no,” I said, “The high-risk doctor said I could take medication or wait to do it naturally.”

“The medication really isn’t a good idea for your situation,” she said, “And waiting to do it naturally is really inconvenient--you have no idea when it’s going to happen, and you may need a D&C anyway if the miscarriage is incomplete.”

“Well, one of my best friends is getting married this weekend, with lead-up events all this week, and I’m visiting my parents next week. Can’t I please just wait two weeks before forcibly removing my baby through a medical procedure?” And thus I begged to let my body do what it was designed to do.

By the grace of God, I laughed so much that weekend. Good friends are a salve for the soul, and few things are more wonderful than celebrating with those who are dear to you. While my body started to show signs that Kiddo was coming soon, I had no pain, and I didn’t pass out in the blaring August sun. And, fortunately, I was unworried because nobody had told me what was coming next.

Monday night, in the comfort of my childhood home, I underwent the greatest pains that I had ever experienced, with my husband and my mother by my side. The doctors had told me that natural miscarriage was inconvenient, and that it would probably be like a heavy menstrual period. They didn’t tell me that I could have agonizing contractions every 5 minutes for 6-7 hours, or that it might be helpful to do some quick research on labor and delivery pain management as I anticipated my loss. I was completely unprepared, but the blinding pain in my body merely mirrored the pain in my soul.

When the sun rose Tuesday morning, it was over. We had said goodbye.

Within two weeks of losing our little Kiddo, we found out that the move to London had been officially axed. We’d lost the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that we’d been contemplating for months.

In the fog that followed, there was one thing that I knew: “The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away.” Job knew pain far beyond what I was experiencing, and yet, in the same breath came, “Blessed be the name of the LORD.” I thanked God for the friends that I laughed with, and the friends and family who listened and hurt with me, and the prior knowledge that many women in my family had experienced miscarriages that were at least as painful as mine. I thanked God for his timing, and his healing, and that we hadn’t made any rash decisions in our fervor. I thanked God for life and breath, for my husband by my side, for the ability to shed tears.

The Rest of the Story...So Far

One decision that we had made was to move out of our dark, somewhat depressing studio apartment before the new school year began. It needed to happen anyway, and, at the time, we’d figured that we’d bum it with my family in the suburbs before the big (now-gone) move.

However, now, since we’d given up the affordable apartment with the wonderful landlords, we realized that we kind of had to move to the suburbs, at least for awhile. I liked the idea of being near my family as we healed from our turmoil, and on top of that, I’d had a lot of difficulty finding a full-time job near where we lived in the city, and I knew that I had more connections in the suburbs. So, against the very principles on which we stand (I’m kidding--we just never saw it coming), we moved back to the ‘burbs for the indefinite future.

We had the most wonderful moving day ever--many hands make light work, and it’s all the more fun when they’re all people who love you. We were deeply grateful to have a nice space of our own to live in--and it has plenty of windows! I’d been thinking about going back to school for awhile, so we decided to find out more about the possibility of me pursuing a Masters in Teaching, and then I landed a job as a Teacher Assistant working with K-2nd Grade before I could even sort out my substitute teaching license. Meanwhile, Soren got a raise (and he would get another a couple of months later), and we wondered to ourselves, “What do we even do with all of this additional income???”

In early November, we got our answer--we were pregnant again. This time, we were shocked at the positive test--we had tried, sure, but it was largely because the summer would be an ideal time for me to give birth as a student/teacher, and we didn’t think anything would come of it because it usually takes awhile to be successful anyway. Those two lines made us realize that we were actually entirely unsure as to whether we were ready to open up to new hopes after such a recent loss.

So then, of course, my extreme pregnancy fatigue and my discomfort with the Common Core standards for the adorable tiny people combined to convince me, when I faced some roadblocks in the application process, that I needed more time to make a decision about going for my masters, so I deferred my acceptance for a semester.

Now that things had felt pretty settled for a few weeks and we had deferred that longer-term commitment, Soren decided that it was time to casually bring up an email that he’d gotten from a London-based co-worker. In summary, it said something along the lines of: Hey, we've started looking for another person for our team, and we were hoping someone in Chicago might be interested...like you.

Too soon, God. Too soon. We had gotten used to the idea of sticking around, especially with a baby on the way, and London was a painful subject for us. We didn’t respond for awhile.

But then, a couple of things happened: I faced difficulties at work that made me unsure of whether I’d be keeping my job in the short-term, much less the long term. And then, Soren had a conversation with another relocating co-worker, and she said, “Well, why not find out the details?” And she was right--we knew how much it would take for us to move (my tireless research in the spring and summer and given us some good starting budget details), so we wouldn’t have to commit hardly any time to figuring out whether the intended offer was in a reasonable range.

And as it turns out, the estimated offer met almost exactly with what we'd previously calculated we'd need to live in London. So we continued the conversation.

In the meantime, we had an early ultrasound for our little Baby Bird. This kid had a strong heartbeat, and we could see tiny legs waving as we sat in awe. The technician told us that, while we had calculated that we were 8 weeks 3 days along, they measured the baby at 8 weeks 4 days. This is what our Kiddo, if healthy, would have looked like on July 28th. The pain of that loss won’t simply disappear, but I was reminded that this little Baby Bird is such a gift to be treasured, and love began to replace the fear in my heart.

By the end of December, the conversation about London had moved to a place where, barring any major bureaucratic snafus, we’d soon have an offer on the table to leave sometime in the spring. We told our families, and of course they were happy and sad, because our families are so very good at loving us.

On January 30th, the day before Soren’s 26th birthday, we got the official offer. And since the numbers were a little bit different than the estimate, we initially weren’t sure it would be enough for us to live on. But after some further research and some number crunching, we realized that with the combination of affordable rent, increased income and bonuses, and relocation money, we have the perfect amount that we need to make the move. So it’s true--God did bring us to the ‘burbs for a reason. And I have had (and kept!) this job for a reason.

So here we are: we have another baby due this summer, and a new plan to move to our dream location, London, in March. And we are ecstatic.

2014 was not an easy year, but you know what? This past summer, I learned to bless the name of the Lord, to sincerely thank God all the way through one of the darkest moments of my life. After learning that painfully-earned lesson, do you have any idea how easy it is to be grateful in this time of plenty? Students with behavior problems, dead cars, and constant nausea pale in comparison to the glorious provisions and plans of our Lord. His praise is on my lips every day, and if he stops the beautiful heartbeat of our little Baby Bird, or if he bars our entry to the UK, more tears will fall, with whispers of glory beside them. Because I know that though the Lord may sometimes take away, he never stops giving, so I praise him for the laughter of tomorrow and the breath of today that will get me there.