Article April 11, 2011 Issue

A new adventure in our life

Moving house, changing career, and leaving behind the familiar becomes a lesson in trusting the healing message of the Comforter.

By Kaśka Michaëlis

About three years ago, I had a healing in which months of turmoil in my life eventually yielded to a deeper understanding of how the “Comforter” aspect of God’s action works. It started in February when my husband decided to pack up his job, which brought much-needed income but also caused him a great deal of stress. For a few months we were living off our savings. During this time I was earnestly praying for direction in our life.

Soon, an opportunity arose for my husband to establish his own business, together with our daughter and her husband, in Ankara, Turkey. This meant leaving England, which had been my home for 33 years. I didn’t mind a new adventure in our life, but the idea of moving and setting up a new home somewhere else was a particularly painful one. I loved our home and was very happy there. It also meant parting with our son, all my closest friends, my activities, and everything that was important to me. I felt that perhaps God had a spiritual lesson to teach me, but I didn’t expect that this would involve having to uproot at a stage of our life when we were close to retirement! It all felt like too much.

Nevertheless, I put my feelings on the back burner and prepared for the move. We managed to rent our house fairly quickly, and in the middle of February we safely arrived in Ankara. The moments of joy at finally being reunited with our daughter and our little grandson, however, were rapidly replaced by profound feelings of loss and anxiety. My structure, my friends, my freedom, my household, my car, my life as I had known it for the last 33 years, were gone, and I felt utterly bereft of anything that felt familiar and comforting. I felt lonely, displaced, and even angry toward my husband for having been the reason for the move. 