Ich wählte eine Familie

My love affair with the German language began when I was 17. My best friend and role model was 21 and a senior at Willamette University. She was dating a foreign exchange student from Austria, whom she subsequently married. I entered Willamette, myself, the following  year, after my friend had already graduated. She married her Austrian boy and moved with him to Vienna where they lived for 10 years. And I enrolled in Elementary German at Willamette. I was an uber-achiever German student, doing everything I could think of to learn this language. I listened to tapes to perfect my pronunciation. I pasted 3 X 5 cards with German vocabulary all over my dorm room. I hung out with the new German exchange student. I lived in an international studies house, where I was supposed to speak only German. However, what I needed was immersion. I needed to live for an extended period of time in a German-speaking country if I was to truly master the language. I applied and was accepted to an exchange program, and I prepared to spend my junior year studying at the University of Munich.

Then the world turned upside down. Three months before I was to leave, my dad passed away tragically and unexpectedly. And I decided not to go. Looking back, this is by far my biggest life regret, but at the time I felt too destroyed to do much of anything, let alone leave the country for 10 months. The poet tell us "No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man." Indeed, I would never have such an opportunity again.

Shortly after, I met Gerald and we were married. Early in our marriage, we continued to talk about travel to Germany and even looked into some long-term study opportunities there. But sooner than we expected, we learned that if you give God half a chance, God will send your children on God's perfect timetable, not according to your imperfect plan. In under three years, we had our first two babies, with the other three to follow.

And the years went by.

And I chose a family.

Dreams of Germany, though still somewhere in my mind, were pushed further and further to the back burner of life, as funding for such a trip was replaced by more immediate needs: diapers and dance classes, braces and ballet slippers, piano lessons and prom dresses. I learned that motherhood was my divine destiny, greater than any pull I felt toward European travel or foreign language study and far more meaningful.

And the years went by.

And I chose a family.

Now I have lived half my life, perhaps even a little more than half; I can't be sure. Today, any thought of travel to Germany is replaced by our financial focus on missions and weddings and college educations. In May when Isaiah graduates from Westminster, we will be able to say "three down and two to go"  toward our goal of supporting all five kids through their undergraduate degrees.

With half my life still ahead, I could still make it to Germany. Maybe. Someday. If I do, it will surely be a dream come true, but if I don't, that will be okay too. And though I can still speak a bit of German and understand lots, I will most probably never be fluent. And that is okay too. Because I have something greater and purer and far more worthwhile. I have something that lasts forever.

Ich wählte eine Familie. I chose a family.