Alaska Has Stolen My Heart…

Moving.  Just the thought of the word sends my pulse racing and my blood pressure through the roof!  It’s not that I don’t like the actual moving…I love change.  I love new places, new adventures, new people and new memories!  I love the road trips, the visiting family, the time in the car with just my sweet little family.  I love the scenery as we drive across the country that we love so very much!  All of it, I LOVE! 

But what I don’t like, is the thought of leaving Alaska.  I have grown to love this place and think of it as home.  Even in the negative temps, the long months of darkness, and the frozen EVERYTHING…there is so much that compensates for those things that I barely notice them anymore.  Everything here is so BIG…so open and so beautiful.  There are more species of animals than there are people…we can drive and drive for hours and hours without ever encountering another human being!  I feel so close to God here…life is simple and it is so easy to keep perspective on what really matters. 

You dress for warmth, not fashion…you live to survive, not impress.  There is no “keeping up with the Jone’s”.  No one cares what you drive, what you wear, where you live or what you do.  You are who you are, and people like you just that way.  Nobody is “weird” or “unusual”…or maybe we are ALL WEIRD AND UNUSUAL, I don’t know.  But not matter who you are, you fit!

There are no dress codes for Sunday mornings…no restaurant requires black ties, your Carharts will do just fine!  A seven hour drive to go shopping is normal…but if you can’t find it at Walmart or Fred Meyer, you probably don’t need it anyway.  You sleep in the winter b/c the summers are made for playing…and playing hard!  The only good excuse for missing church in the summer is b/c your fishing…in the fall,  hunting.  No one questions or judges… well only if you come back empty handed!  Salmon and moose are just as good currency as cash in your pocket.  Crime is low b/c EVERYONE packs!  You carry your Bible AND your gun to church on Sundays.  The guy in the checkout line at the grocery store openly wears his 357 on his hip, and no one gives it a second thought!  Stupid people don’t last long here, b/c someone WILL shoot them in the face!

I am sad to leave this place!  It is the most incredible place I have ever lived!  This is the place where you chase the Aurora’s in the middle of the night, you swim in hot springs in –40 degree weather, you hike in the woods filled with snow covered Christmas trees all winter long!  This is the place where the sun never sets for 3 months straight…where the moon is brighter and the stars feel like you can reach out and grab one, keeping in your pocket for a rainy day!  You watch bears catch salmon while fishing on the opposite shoreline…you loose count of eagles soaring high, moose meandering in nearby fields, or maybe taking walk down main street!  Life slows here…b/c the beauty is too magnificent to overlook.  I feel overwhelmed with God’s greatness each and every day!  

I am excited for the next chapter of our lives…but sad it will take us away from this place.  I pray with all my heart God directs our steps back here one day.  This is our home, the only place my babies have ever known. 

Some days fear grips my heart as I think of moving back to the South.  The busyness, the stress, the materialism, the “keeping-up”.  I pray that I can bring a bit of Alaska back with me…that I can keep this sense of quiet and slow and good and not get caught up in all the hustle and “go”.  God has begun a work in my life, and I pray it continues on no matter what this world brings my way.