someday

The rearview mirror framed the closing garage door this morning (I wrote this on Friday) as we left the house for the last time. I cried.

It’s not the first time in the past few days, nor will it be the last. This has been a good summer. And we made a lot of memories in that house. Before we left, I stood in the doorway of the blue-carpeted room that was Ivory’s and thought to myself, “She learned to walk here. On that carpet.” And I glanced at Titus in his car seat in the middle of the empty kitchen floor and thought to myself “This was his first home”. 

His first home – and my… ninth, I think? since I moved out of Dad and Mom’s six years ago. At first it wasn’t a big deal – I was single, and then we were married… but the difference between moving two people and moving four people is the difference between adventure and anxiety. 

I shouldn’t put it that way, because God has led us through, every single time, and given grace to conquer all my worries and fears and more. But Grant and I talk and dream of the day when our family doesn’t get uprooted so often… when we can plop our boxes down for the last time (for a while, anyway) and say, “we’re home”. 

Sounds like heaven, doesn’t it?

And I think that’s one of the countless lessons God has been teaching me in the past few years. This world is not my home. And eternally speaking, it doesn’t matter where we’re raising our family or what things we have surrounding us to help us do it. As a family, we will grow more if we learn to love and rejoice and praise God in the hard places than we will if we are never in hard places. 

So God has been challenging me to count my blessings while we’re in this transient time of life… to thank Him that He’s never allowed me to get too settled or become too comfortable. To thank Him that my children are flexible and resilient even though the changes hurt them too. To thank Him that in each step we've taken, He’s used it to draw Grant and I closer and closer together and more dependent on each other. To thank Him for the relationships He’s allowed us to maintain through it all, and the new friendships He’s provided. To thank Him that there is an end to all this in heaven. 

Someday, hopefully, we’ll have a more permanent earthly home. And someday, we’ll have a heavenly home, which will be even better. 

Today, September 3, we are on our way back to Ixtlan. We can feel all your prayers, and look forward to being back! We have no idea what God has in store for us, but we do know that He is there. Thanks for all your love and support!