Even the Change

   It’s November.

The leaves have changed, and so have our four walls. Our renters are moving into our house as I write this, and we sit snug and warm in the little apartment that will be our home until we move to Papua New Guinea in two months.

Life looks different than it did a year ago. Really, really different. Unsettled, uncertain, moving forward faster than I can keep up. Some days it feels like more than I can handle.

But for now, I’m snuggled peaceful under a blanket of gratitude, counting gifts breath by slow, deep breath.

Girls, still sticky with this morning’s maple syrup, sitting quiet together and watching cartoons.

The sound of a cold rain that wants to be snow.

The strong and gentle arms of a man who is not afraid of hard work.

Good food made by people who understand that cooking and moving don’t fit easily together.

A second chance at love for my dad, and a four-year-old excited about being the flower girl at her Pappy’s wedding.

People who are giving and praying us forward, partners with us in very real and sacrificial ways.

The weight of a heart full of hard goodbyes, because that means we love and are loved.

A close friend who spent the morning scrubbing the cabinets of a house I won’t live in for a long time, and then stretched out weary beside me on the floor and said words I needed to hear: “You’re doing well with all of this.”

And change.

Yes, even the change.

It has torn us to pieces, plowed up hidden things, made us weep and question and ache. It has dissolved us, stripped away layers, and left us exposed and vulnerable like new, tender skin.

Raw. Sensitive. Healing.

    And ready for the new things coming as we follow hard after the God who has called us.

“This means anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person.
The old life is gone; a new life has begun.”
~2 Corinthians 5:17 (NLT)