Tiffany Tour 2014

Later this week, I will be embarking on a trip that I've affectionately titled "Tiffany Tour 2014: Laughs, Tears, and Beers.

One week from today I start my final session of classes at Luther Seminary in Saint Paul, Minnesota. My seminary experience has been a blessing, fruitful experience. However, the journey didn't go quite like I had planned. It's hard to believe how much my life has changed since I began classes. 

But, finishing my classes is finishing a journey that Tiffany and I started together. It's upholding our vision, it's finishing a goal that we set. It's remaining faithful to the vocation that God called me to. It's trusting that God has sustained me through this terribly heartbreaking final leg of the journey.

I finish my classes for Tiffany as much as for myself. Because I know it is what she would want for me. I know that she would want me to continue working on building God's Kingdom. 

However, seminary is only one part of the journey I will be embarking on in the upcoming weeks.

I've taken vacation time before and after seminary in order to make the drive to and from Minnesota at a leisurely pace.

Along the way, I will be stopping to visit and stay with Tiffany and I's friends and family. (Hence the creative name of the journey) I cannot wait to see many wonderful people along the way. However, I make no illusions that this will be an easy trip. 

This will be emotional.

This will be exhausting.

But ultimately, it will be worth it.

It is important for me to honor and maintain the relationships with others that Tiffany and I had together. Maintaining these relationships is not some sort of dreadful obligation, it is a joyous reaction to the love and friendship I found in these relationships.

In some small way, we can keep parts of Tiffany alive for one another.

It may not be much, but it's all we've got.

In grief's lonely exile, you hold onto what you've got. 

Here's an outline of the trip:

5/28- Leave Indiana and travel to Chicago to spend the evening with Kendra and Patrick

5/29- Leave Chicago and travel to Iowa to stay with Erin and Ben

5/31- Leave Iowa and head to the Twin Cities to spend time with Bryan, Stephen, and Poppa Thorsell

6/2-6/7- Seminary Classes

6/8 & 6/9- Go to the Cabin in Northern Minnesota with Bryan, Stephen, and Poppa Thorsell

6/10- Head to "The U.P." and stay with Lindsey and Kurt

6/11- Travel to Watertown, WI to stay with Emily and Kyle

6/12- Venture down to Kenosha, WI to stay with Ashley and Brian

6/13- Make the short trek back to Chicago to stay with Julie and Ozzie, and hopefully see Laurie and Dave

6/14- Return to beautiful Bryant, IN

Did you keep up with all of that?

Neither did I.

I will be blogging intermittently along the way. Perhaps short, succinct blogs that get to the point. (I'm not typically know for brevity) 

Please continue to keep me in your prayers. Believe me, they continually to strengthen and sustain me.

I'll see y'all down the road...

Grace and Peace,

Robert