I just dropped off my family at the airport. We had a wonderful, long weekend visit together. They live 2,000 miles away. I moved the day after I got married. That was nine years ago. Yes, I’ve been a long-distance daughter for nine years. It’s hard to believe. And it has been challenging in many ways. I know my way around airports, that’s for sure! 

Airport drop-offs are hard. The family pickups are pure joy. But drop-off? Drop-offs can be downright depressing.

I’m feeling a wide range of emotions after my last drop-off—thankful for the precious time we had, already planning the next trip, and ready to get back into my routine with the kids, while wishing that routine regularly involved my family.

Honestly, the place I’m in has not felt like home lately.

The pandemic drove that feeling deeper into my soul. And I know I’m not alone in that feeling. Many of my friends are long-distance daughters. The town I live in is full of transplants and transients. I’ve made a lot of military mom friends over the years, too. But my husband’s job requires us to stay put. Some of my friends have moved back home. Some have forged new frontiers with their families. Some are still searching for their place in the land God has brought them into. What does their life look like in this new landscape?

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But you know what I’ve seen? The stories I’ve heard? I’ve seen perseverance, grit, determination, and a desire to bloom where planted even if the place is not one of preference.

I have seen great courage and faith in my fellow long-distance daughters.

I have seen strength. I have witnessed women rise to the occasion. I have watched God bless obedience over and over again in my life, and in the lives of other mothers who have persevered when preference was not an option.

Yes, we have bloomed where planted. We have been strong for our children when it was hard raising a family so far away from our own families. We have said, “Yes and Amen,” to God’s will and His way over and over again. We have waited on His timing and His provision to pull us through the hard parts. We have experienced thrills and joys only known to our little family. We have celebrated many milestones alone, but we have celebrated with all our hearts.

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We have stayed. We have prayed. We have persevered even when our preference of place didn’t work out for whatever reason.

Here’s what I’ve learned in the last nine years: if God has us in a certain place for a certain time, then we can be very certain it’s for His glory and our good. Even when it’s hard, it’s for His glory.

Even when it hurts, it’s for our good.

We might not always see it, but He works in the waiting. We can trust His timing. And we can even trust in the place He has us right now even if it’s not our preference. 

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I want to live my life beyond preference while boldly believing He will be glorified through me, through my family, through my perseverance, and through my prayer . . .  through it all.

He has and will always take care of me. Even though my heart deeply feels like a long-distance daughter today, I know I am also deeply loved by my Heavenly Father. And I can trust His plan for this certain place in this certain season of my life. I can certainly trust Him completely.

And I can trust Him even more today than I did nine years ago because of everything I have seen. Because of all the ways this place has worked for His glory and my good. Yes, He works all things out for our good and His glory.

Originally published on the author’s Facebook page