Nearly five years ago Michael and I married in a suburb of Chicago. A month later, we packed our bags and started our life together back where we met in North Iraq. At the time, we had to take a bus to the border of Turkey, and cross over by foot.

I remember the identity of “wife” so clearly prescribed to me in the transfer from one country to another. In that context, the new last name signaled complete dependency on my husband. Before marriage, I was single and freely roamed with dignity, treated as a foreigner, spoken to as someone with a purpose. At border patrol, I was asked questions without a second thought as to whether or not I deserved the attention.

Yet, this time, my first time as a married woman, it seemed, no one cared. I felt invisible.

I’m learning that transition, or movement from one place to another – unsettles the narrative I’ve grown accustomed to and forces a new presumed identity. Naturally, no one wants to fall into a box, we need to assert our unique decisions that led us here. Is the desire to be unique a form of vanity? Or is it simply wanting to be more than the Status quo?

We’ve moved a lot.

In four years, Michael and I have moved into seven homes in three countries – from North Iraq to Jordan to Costa Rica.

Moving touches on the relational, the personal, physical and spiritual realms of our lives. It brings up expectations we weren’t aware of, and can result in a form of discontentment if we are not careful to flex muscles of grace.

I chose to name the blog space “journeys in the deep” because a life of faith is kind of wild like that. It’s a journey of reckless abandon, complete with tossing and turning of waves, and full of wonder. Somedays there are storms that seem like they will never end, and somedays there is absolute calm.