Seven Steps to Success when Navigating a Radical Relocation
Radical relocation happens to all of us sooner or later. What's a radical relocation?
It could be something major like a move halfway around the globe or the untimely death of a spouse. It could be something more minor like giving up your bedroom to your Thanksgiving guests. One thing is true. Radical relocation entails displacement from your usual routine.
We usually think of radical as something mega-BIG. Something that changes our world on a fundamental level. A radical relocation would then be a BIG TIME change in person, place or time. That certainly fits my world since 2016 when my husband unexpectedly died. But even small changes can be radical. Radical can just as easily apply to giving up your bedroom or eating spam by candlelight instead of roasted turkey because the electricity went out at exactly the wrong time. That's because the true issue in radical relocation is not the event itself, but how we process the event internally. Some find change easier than others.
This month I radically relocated from Davenport, IA to Saipan, CNMI. Here is what I discovered about the inner workings of a radical relocation and how to navigate it successfully.
I am learning to embrace chopsticks into my new life. The long blue ones are for cooking, the shorter ones for eating. Last night cooking with the long ones I (for the first time) didn't drop them from start to finish. Progress!
You see the fork on my drain cloth? I do regress at times. The dishes and dish towel I brought with me in my suitcase but bought the cheese grater and toaster oven here.
I brought the Isabel Bloom mourning dove with me in my suitcase to remind me of my wonderful friends in Davenport. Davenport is the place where Larry died. Davenport is to me a place of refuge, support, and vision. It is the place where God's call on my life became real. The dove is sitting on a cookbook I also brought with me called My French Table to remind me of my family heritage. Without an oven, this cookbook will likely not be used much here. Good thing it's purpose is memory not usefulness. My mother made the cloth runner which covered the piano keys she (and then I) played until I passed the piano to my grandchildren to enable me to radically relocate.
Odd things often dwell together in new places.
See the reason my suitcases were so heavy! I brought my cast iron griddle, my chicken, and my apron along with my pendulum bell clock I bought in Germany whose chains you can see hanging beyond the handle of the griddle. It is basically a cuckoo clock with no sides so its inner workings and gears show. Every move I have made required me to pray over it to get it going. Same thing here. It would not run. I prayed for six days and yesterday, the seventh, God touched it once again and it is running.
Number 8 on my list should be pray always! God goes before you in every radical relocation, planned or otherwise, if you commit your way to him. Trust God to bring you unscathed through every challenge your radical relocation metes into your inner being. He gets you through by inviting you to examine yourself for attitudes that need cleansing, confessing your need in prayer, and then choosing to rest yourself in God's greater understanding and oversight of your circumstances.
My God richly bless you, dear ones, as you seek to follow Him in all you do. Next time I hope to take you on a walk outside. We will discover the post office together and see what's along the way.
Amy
Want to help me? Go here.
It could be something major like a move halfway around the globe or the untimely death of a spouse. It could be something more minor like giving up your bedroom to your Thanksgiving guests. One thing is true. Radical relocation entails displacement from your usual routine.
We usually think of radical as something mega-BIG. Something that changes our world on a fundamental level. A radical relocation would then be a BIG TIME change in person, place or time. That certainly fits my world since 2016 when my husband unexpectedly died. But even small changes can be radical. Radical can just as easily apply to giving up your bedroom or eating spam by candlelight instead of roasted turkey because the electricity went out at exactly the wrong time. That's because the true issue in radical relocation is not the event itself, but how we process the event internally. Some find change easier than others.
This month I radically relocated from Davenport, IA to Saipan, CNMI. Here is what I discovered about the inner workings of a radical relocation and how to navigate it successfully.
- Make plans but realize nothing will go quite the way you've charted it out.
- Always have a backup plan. I may have overdone this just a trifle. I had backup plans for my backup plan. But I needed almost every plan and was glad to have thought out my options before the crises hit---and I do mean crises---plural!
- It is hard to ask for help. Do it anyway. It is an exercise in needed humility. I told God I'd almost prefer to rebel and do it my own way using my own resources...but I didn't. I asked for help but it was so hard! I felt so troublesome and burdensome until I remembered that I like to help others. Why might not others just as much like to help me? Pride dies hard.
- Anger is inevitable. My theory is that it stems from either frustration or a sense of being out of control or both.
- Half the people in your world will think you are awesome for voluntarily radically relocating. The other half will think you have lost your mind. Allow yourself freedom to relocate anyway, while allowing them freedom to react as they choose. I had to keep reminding myself that I am neither awesome nor demented. I am simply following Jesus in the next stage of the life he has given to me.
- Cultivate your sense of humor. On this side of the move, here in Saipan I am learning many new ways of living. Such as having multiple toothbrushes so one is always dry. NEVER put a wet toothbrush in your mouth. ALWAYS tap your dry toothbrush upside down on the sink to shake out the ants before using it. I chuckle every time I eject a herd of itty-bitty ants into the sink and see their dazed expressions, "What just happened?"
- Take something familiar from the old place into the new. Embrace new things into your old ways.
I am learning to embrace chopsticks into my new life. The long blue ones are for cooking, the shorter ones for eating. Last night cooking with the long ones I (for the first time) didn't drop them from start to finish. Progress!
You see the fork on my drain cloth? I do regress at times. The dishes and dish towel I brought with me in my suitcase but bought the cheese grater and toaster oven here. 
I brought the Isabel Bloom mourning dove with me in my suitcase to remind me of my wonderful friends in Davenport. Davenport is the place where Larry died. Davenport is to me a place of refuge, support, and vision. It is the place where God's call on my life became real. The dove is sitting on a cookbook I also brought with me called My French Table to remind me of my family heritage. Without an oven, this cookbook will likely not be used much here. Good thing it's purpose is memory not usefulness. My mother made the cloth runner which covered the piano keys she (and then I) played until I passed the piano to my grandchildren to enable me to radically relocate.
Odd things often dwell together in new places.
See the reason my suitcases were so heavy! I brought my cast iron griddle, my chicken, and my apron along with my pendulum bell clock I bought in Germany whose chains you can see hanging beyond the handle of the griddle. It is basically a cuckoo clock with no sides so its inner workings and gears show. Every move I have made required me to pray over it to get it going. Same thing here. It would not run. I prayed for six days and yesterday, the seventh, God touched it once again and it is running.
Number 8 on my list should be pray always! God goes before you in every radical relocation, planned or otherwise, if you commit your way to him. Trust God to bring you unscathed through every challenge your radical relocation metes into your inner being. He gets you through by inviting you to examine yourself for attitudes that need cleansing, confessing your need in prayer, and then choosing to rest yourself in God's greater understanding and oversight of your circumstances.
My God richly bless you, dear ones, as you seek to follow Him in all you do. Next time I hope to take you on a walk outside. We will discover the post office together and see what's along the way.
Amy
Want to help me? Go here.
May God richly bless you for helping me do what God has called me to do here in Saipan. Be advised your gift is a personal gift and not tax deductible nor are you receiving from me any goods or services.
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