A new thing

"It won't all fit."

36 hours before our stuff was to be shipped to Colorado, Matt and I looked at our storage contatiners we had ordered to pack all our belongings into and realized all of our stuff would not fit. We had carefully sorted through all of our stuff in the weeks before and decided what could be given away, stored away, and thrown away. We had already decided what we would need for Colorado. Suddenly it became aparant that it would be impossible to take everything we had planned to take with us. The next morning we had our ultrasound to find out the sex of our baby (a girl!) and then drove to the house to go through all of our belongings. Again. We unpacked two containers, unpacked about a hundred boxes, bagged over 120 bags of clothes, towels, linens, toys, other soft items, and made large stacks of things to be thrown away or given away. I remember crying in frustration and grief as I was given charge of the task to decide what we really needed and what we didn't. I was frustrated that we couldn't take everything I thought we needed to make our house a home. I wanted things a certain way, and I was faced with the reality that my expectations for what the physical things we would have in Colorado drastically changed. As I calmed down and the tears began to dry up, I began to hear God's voice. "I am doing a new thing in Colorado." I wanted to take our old life, our old stuff, and our old way of living and transport it to Colorado. I didn't want to look for new things or do without things I already had. I wanted my Tacoma life to simply land in Colorado. But God had something else in mind, and as the day wore on, as the give-away piles stacked higher and higher, I began to let go of my expecatations for our move. I finally, for the first time, realized that life would not be like it was back in Tacoma. I had to choose to let go of what I wanted life to be like in Colorado and allow myself to see what God wanted. I needed to release my expectations and hold fast to the new promises God had for us in Colorado.

As we have unpacked and set up our new home I have held fast to the promise that God is doing something new here and I have experienced it firsthand. I have seen our family grow in ways we could not have without moving here. I have watched all our kids rise to the challenge of attending new schools, visiting new churches, and getting settled into a new neighborhood. I have seen God answer prayer after prayer in incredible ways.

Every day has not been easy. I have had moments where I wanted to quickly throw in the towel and move back to Tacoma. I have longed to walk into a room where I am known, instead of knowing no one. But God keeps whispering to me that he is doing something new, and I realize I would be a fool to not dive in fully to the place God has called me. I want to experience this new life he has for us here. With all the brief glimpses we have had into what He is doing in our hearts and lives, I can say with confidence that God's ways are higher than mine. And I am excited to see where he leads us in this journey.

In front of our new house on Annabelle's first day of school