I needed to take a break from my blog for a few months as we finished getting our house ready for market, sold our house and moved to Chicago. Sometimes this blog flows quickly and easily and sometimes it takes all day. I needed to let go of some things during that crazy, stressful, chaotic period and my blog was one of them.
I am writing this from the 24th floor of a high-rise apartment building in Chicago. I can honestly say those are words I never expected to write. It is amazing the places God will take us if we just let Him. I couldn’t have made it this far if I did not believe this was a clear call from God to move to Chicago.
The last 3 months – harder than I possibly could have imagined. A life lived 23.5 years in one place – painful to pull out by the roots and transplant somewhere else. I have a choice in all this. To stay stuck on what was and can no longer be or to run the race that God has set before me.
I choose to rest on and breath in Joshua 1:9 and Deuteronomy 31:6 which in part tell me that the Lord will be with me wherever I go and that he will never leave me nor forsake me. These are not just idle words on a page. They are the truth on which I stand.
I will be open to the lessons God is trying to teach me. That He goes before me and has prepared a way. That my identity needs to be in Christ – not my job, my kids, my husband or my house/things. That a house is just a building, but a home is wherever my loved ones gather. That true friends follow you because it really is just geography.
That you can get by with a lot less shoes and clothes and books and possessions than you think. That there is always something new to see and to learn and to discover is you just open your eyes. That God sometimes creates pockets in our life that allow us to slow down and seek Him in a whole new way.
That sometimes you do it even when it is scary or uncomfortable or different than what you are used to – the wonky parking ramp where you store your car, the downtown Chicago traffic, the public transportation (below, on, and above ground), the condo search, the grocery shopping, the church hunting, the getting lost and then learning your way around.
I choose to embrace all of this because it is just part of the process of building a new life in a new place. And when the days are hard, and I feel lonely, I will remember that God has set this two months of temp housing aside just for me to prepare me for what is ahead.
Precious Father, please help me to trust in you with all my heart and lean not on my own understanding. In all my ways, may I acknowledge you so that you will direct my paths. Amen.