Thank you, all, for your kind words, prayers, and encouragement during our incremental move. What’s that, you ask? Well, let me explain.

In our past moves, we knew the move is coming, so we spent a few months to a year or so preparing the house itself, paring down and packing up belongings, and enjoying the time we had left with nearby family and friends. Moving day comes, and everyone comes to lend a hand to load the moving trucks and automobiles. Hugs are given, tears are shred, and then everyone moves on to their normal or new normal routines. A pretty typical move for most people. While it can sometimes take months to reopen and unpack that last moving box, the feeling of being settled in to the new place usually comes months before that because you have all your belongings and have said all your final goodbyes. Even if a move is sudden, there is a burst of energy to the moving deadline, it is complete, and the new life at the new place may begin.

An incremental move is one in which you must spend time in both your old place AND your new for an extended period of time, alternating between the two before the far-off deadline of the finality of the move hits (house sells, new job becomes full time, issues at old location are completely finalized, etc), so household items are packed and moved at a slower pace, and you can leisurely and deliberately have everything placed “just so” in your new place.
The trouble for me is that I got really tired – I mean the should-I-go-see-a-doctor type of tired. Since I have had other seasons in life when I got that extremely tired, I was able to identify that I was actually feeling so stressed and overwhelmed that I was getting to the point of not functioning. And, I didn’t ask for help often because I couldn’t really articulate the type of help I needed or I felt inadequate for not doing something a different way or at a different time. I stopped contacting friends because when we were back in the old place, it was work, work, work, and I was too tired to try. When we got to the new place, it was work, work, work, so no time was allotted for making new friends, establishing a biblical community, etc.

Part of my inability to focus on the positives of this style of move was my “stinkin’ thinkin’” about being ineffective and thinking that this long season of waiting (more on that later) was somehow my fault. “If only I had done this or that then or then things might be better now.” How many of you get stuck in those thought loops like me? A quote that stuck with me that is making the rounds on social media is:

“If you think you’ve blown God’s plan for your life, rest in this: You, my beautiful friend, are not that powerful.”

~Lisa Bevere

It is so true! God is all powerful and all-knowing. Why, oh why, do we have to be reminded day after day that we can trust Him?

 “give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” (1 Thessalonians 5:18)

     You would think that after all we went through with having and losing Jedidiah, I would be a pro at this. I saw God move in amazing ways after the death of our son. I KNOW that God will never leave us or forsake us, and I KNOW that He has a plan and purpose for ALL events that are allowed in our lives.

What causes us to lose sight of how we ought to think about God? It is our deeply held beliefs that drive our thoughts and control our actions. Here at CVR, we have taught this truth so many times to others. As I struggled, I came to realize that I hold some deeply flawed beliefs about myself (insecurity anyone?) and about how God views me. I KNOW His truth, but often times, I still struggle to fully believe it in the deepest recesses of who I am.

     What about you?