A year ago today....tomorrow...and the next day, July 8th ,9th, and 10th

A year ago today, July 8th (the day I started this post)

We planned to move on July 5th after closing on the sale of our house. Then the sale fell through, and my closest friend's husband passed away. Instead of leaving on the 5th, we stayed through the 7th for my friend's husband's funeral. We hoped to have the truck packed and the house cleaned out in order to leave the next morning on July 8th.

I left the funeral so sad for my friend and her children, and I purposely slipped out early because I didn't want to force her to go through another goodbye on such a hard day. 

I woke up on July 8th to a text from my friend asking if she could come visit and hug my neck before I left. She brought me this beautiful mug that meant more to me than she'll ever know. I treasure it and pray for her when I drink out of it every morning. Today as I poured my coffee, my thoughts swirled right back to that morning a year ago today. 

Such a bittersweet day. Leaving so many people that I loved dearly in order to reunite Mike with a family I very regretfully barely even knew after over 20 years of marriage. and to follow a call to a ministry I had no idea was missing from my life. Leaving one side of the family to reconnect and grow with the other side, leaving one church family to join and connect with another, leaving one familiar workplace to walk into my role in a new one. I had no idea that I was the missing piece to a life that awaited me from afar because I was far too busy holding on so tightly to the life in front of me, unable to even fathom God asking me to let it go. 

There are times and situations that you know are going to require significant sacrifice, but the call to follow is undeniable. When you surrender to a call in ministry, you have to be ready to go when God says go, stay when God says stay, and jump when God says jump (or take that leap of faith). The call to move back to Indiana was just as clear as the call to pursue Juan David's adoption twice, even when neither call was anywhere on our radar. 

A day has passed since I started this post, and now it's July 9th, a year from the day we floated out in no-man's land, as we drove the entire day between Texas and Indiana. We didn't end up pulling out of our house in Texas until the evening of the 8th, and we made it as far as Hope, Arkansas when we blew our first tire on the trailer. We woke up early on the 9th, fixed the tire, and continued our drive North. With a three, technically four, vehicle caravan including a very heavy moving truck, let's just say we didn't make good time for the drive. 

Ironically on our one year anniversary of moving, we spent the evening with our New Song family, celebrating a birthday for one of our staff. I had no idea that Bob and Lisa, Jacob and Nicky (and their three amazing little boys, my favorite "littles" as we call them), Jeremy and Maddie, and Julie and Olivia were missing from my life. But I can't imagine not knowing and loving all of them now. 

Today on our one year anniversary of no longer living in Texas, we are about to spend the evening with our new church family, having a cookout with our new Community Group (which we called our Life Group back in Texas).  And the hosts of the evening just happen to probably be the closest friendships we've found and begun to grow with, another couple who left her family to live closer to his family and bought a house built in the 1900's, just like we did. Hannah and I clicked at one of our first C-group meetings and have continued to grow closer ever since. I can't imagine life without her in it, and I'm so thankful for how God orchestrated the details for us to connect. 

Both of these social events are reminders that God wants us to live in community with other believers, giving us extra built-in family wherever we go. We build each other up, help each other out, counsel each other, and spur each other on to keep becoming more and more like Jesus. 

And now today, June 10th, as I finish up this post, I'm reflecting on the new friends I made last night at our Community Group social and the stories we shared of how God orchestrated the details in our lives to land us all in Columbus, IN. People from the East Coast to the West Coast, from other areas in the Midwest, other semi-surrounding states, and even all the way from India and Dubai. We all shared the loneliness of the first year away from family and close friends and then the realization of how that first lonely year yielded to a greater dependence on and intimacy with God. I am thankful to be on this journey, and I'm thankful that we persevered through the hard and just kept showing up. It's definitely a challenge to be the new girl in a small town, and it's hard to break into a small group in a small church. But every time you show up, hard or not, God blesses your effort and keeps bringing new people, opportunities, and experiences into your life that you didn't know were missing.

Now on to year 2 of settling in and putting some roots down. 

And off to a third week of New Song Adventure Camp just down the road. Pray for our 13 new campers coming and for whomever God is drawing to us as students for the next year.