A little more than a year ago I painfully watched as movers packed up my house in Fairhope and loaded a moving van bound for south Georgia. I looked on as they disassembled the baby bed where I'd laid each of my babies....as they moved toys out of the playroom where I'd helped little hands mold playdough and stack blocks....and before I knew it I was standing in an empty house, left with nothing but tears and memories....almost more than my heart could bear.
See, this move was not one of our making....or our choice.
In fact, we had no choice in it at all. Things had happened....life had happened....and we were being sent down a road we would have never chosen to travel. As I closed the door behind me and pulled out of the driveway for the last time, my heart hurt so that my entire body ached, and the tears flowed so freely and profusely that I could hardly see to drive. I couldn't imagine what good might possibly lie ahead of those more than 300 miles we would be traveling to our new home in the next few days. I couldn't imagine that there would be laughter....joy....friendships....and cherished memories to make. Because in my grief for what seemed lost forever, I couldn't see beyond....
Don't get me wrong....I knew that the most important, cherished and adored treasures on this earth were coming with me ( and I don't mean my luggage or my shoes). I knew that as long as the five of us were together we would be fine. And I had a list a mile long of all I was grateful for ... It's not that. It's just that....I loved...and I mean loved....living in Fairhope. I had dreamed of living there for as long as I could remember, so as cliché and corny as it sounds, when we had the chance to move to that little Mayberry by the Bay in 2005 it was truly a dream come true. I would have never left. Ever. Under any circumstances.
Well...Except one. (Turns out you actually have to have a job in order to make money and pay your mortgage to live in your house in your dream town. Who knew? So if your company eliminates your job and you don't have one anymore, you might have to leave your dream town and move (far) away to go to where the job is....in case you were wondering how that all works).
And when that happened it was like being hit upside the head with a 2 x 4 from behind while I was sitting peacefully and happily gazing out across Mobile Bay thinking "Life. Is. Good." (not that I've actually ever been hit upside the head with a large piece of wood but I can only imagine it felt something like this.) That blow happened in early 2009 and was followed by a couple of other near knock-outs, all making for a very, very bad year. Very bad year indeed. And I asked more than once (usually on my knees)..."Dear Lord....where did this come from? And more importantly....Why? Why?"
I didn't have any of those answers as I signed (with tears streaming down my face) the closing papers on my sweet house...or withdrew my sad little kindergartner from his wonderful school and said goodbye to his beloved teacher...or crossed two state lines to meet the moving van at a strange new house in a strange new town where we didn't know a soul.
But God began to replace my questions with calm, my grief with peace, and continually assured me that He had gone before me and would be with me, that He would never leave or forsake me... and I had no reason to be afraid or discouraged. (Deut. 31:8). Even though I didn't know why, He did. And even though I'd been caught by surprise and hit from behind, He had not.
He knew this was coming. And He knew where we were going.
And He was prepared.
...Stay tuned for Part 2
(this is kinda fun...like a mini-series. or a sequel. grab some popcorn and sweet tea and hurry back, y'all).
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