The Move

After spending nearly three months in Nashville, we are back to Montana. It's always hard to leave loved ones behind and say tearful goodbyes to dear family, and we had found a church we absolutely loved as well. But those two factors aside, leaving the city to come back to big sky country was an easy decision. There were reasons to numerous to count and I won't go into detail because this post isn't about that anyway. When we first started talking about the possibility of loading the U-Haul back up and driving back to Montana a short three months after moving away, I kept thinking about what a huge mistake we had made. I mean, who actually uproots their family of five, sells half their stuff, loads what's left on a truck, drives four days to the other side of the country, decides it's not right, loads everything up again, and drives back, having faith that everything will be alright? (Turns out we aren't the only ones, as people keep telling us about other families they know who have done the same, which makes me feel a lot less crazy!)

  From the outside looking in, it appears we made a huge mistake--whether in going there in the first place, or coming back so soon. I kept calling it a mistake too, until I started a list one day. My list was threefold: Reasons we needed to leave Nashville; Things we love about living in Montana; and things I/we had learned along the way. (I made the list after we had made the firm decision to move back home. My heart can fool me so easily and I didn't want to be swayed back and forth, letting my emotions of the day rule.) As I kept adding to the list of what I had learned, my mind began to shift from thinking that it was a mistake, into thinking that maybe it was a necessary trial to teach us and shape us in ways we couldn't have learned or grown otherwise. God sees the big picture; I only see in part. When we pray prayers like, "God, make me more like you," he does, and he does whatever it takes to do so. While some of my darkest days came this past summer, when I felt like I was being stretched and pressed more than I could bear some days, when I couldn't see light at the end of the tunnel of hard things that just kept coming, God had a perfect plan. He was lovingly teaching me and making me a little bit more like him, day after day, trial after trial. I couldn't see it at first. In fact at one point I was out for a walk and I asked him, "Please just show me something, anything, of what you're doing so I don't feel like I'm stumbling around in the dark!" After that prayer, he immediately started revealing things to me little by little. In James 1 in the famous passage about counting trials as "pure joy", the Bible tells us that God will give us wisdom if we ask for it in faith. Reading it in context, this is referring to wisdom regarding our trials. So, we can stumble around through the difficulties in life, being angry at God for not making things easier and remaining in the dark as to why the hard things are happening, or we can trust that God has a greater purpose, that he actually does make all things work together for our good, and we can ask him for wisdom regarding our trial. He may not show us everything and he may not show us right away. But if his Word is true--and it is--then we can ask for wisdom in faith and he will show us, at least in part, what he is doing through our trials. (This makes it a lot easier to "count it all joy.")  

  And so, we are back. We are home. We no longer have the old farm house rental we loved so much, nor does Brad have the job he loved, with insurance and a salary and regular pay raises, but we are walking in faith, knowing that moving back was the right thing for our family and that God will take care of us like he always has. We moved into a house that was for sale, and it has sold, but again, walking in faith that he will provide the right house like he's done time and time again. Though our three months being away felt like years, now that we are back it feels like we never left. The week we returned, I went for a gloriously crisp, cool, fall walk on familiar streets, my breath rising in the air as I breathed the scent of pine and watched low clouds move across the mountains in the distance. And I knew, everything is going to be just fine. I am home. I have learned what home is. We have roots here. We may have uprooted, but we're back to dig in deeper than ever. I am thankful beyond words. I've learned that there is no perfect place, that I will always feel some amount of tension between living in Montana and missing Tennessee, and that that is okay. The last two months of long winters here will probably always be hard, but I've learned in a very tangible way that "the heart is deceitful above all things" (Jeremiah 17:9) and that just because my heart tells me every March that "I hate this place and I can't possibly go on living in this God forsaken tundra, get me out of here!!!!" (dramatic, I know), doesn't mean I should act on those feelings. This is home, and when I'm fed up with winter, this too shall pass. I've learned that I'm not in control, and through that I've been able to deal with some of my fear issues, replacing them with faith. When you lose control of your circumstances, you have a choice: fear, doubt and despair, or faith.  I started this journey in the former; I'm coming out with a bit more of the latter. I can fear my circumstances and dwell on all the possible negative outcomes, or I can have faith in a good God who wants what's best for me. I'm learning to preach truth to myself. It's one thing to read the Bible every morning. It's another thing to believe what I read, to meditate on it and let it take root deep in my heart. Right now is where the rubber meets the road. Do I actually believe the words in the Bible I've been reading for so long? Do I believe that God is working ALL things to my family's and my good because we love him? I make a choice every morning to believe that. I can't pick and choose which parts of the Bible are true: either it's all true or it's all a big fallacy, and I know it to be true, thus every single word is true. It's that simple. So, with every trial that has (and continues to) come my way, I preach truth to myself, and I have peace.   His love never fails. He will never forsake me. He is working all things for my good. I can count trials as pure joy, because he is producing completeness in me. When I have withstood the test, I will receive a crown of life. I don't have to be anxious about anything; By prayer and petition, he will give me peace. His yoke is easy and his burden light, if only I would let him carry it.  

    I started this post the day after we got back; I haven't had time or internet connection to finish it until today, a month later, sitting at my parents house, an unusually early November snow softly falling outside as I type. My heart is happy. I've spent the better part of my life torn between two places on opposite sides of a map. I've cried so many tears and lost so much sleep over the years, saying goodbye to one place, hello to the other; saying happy hellos and painful goodbyes to family visiting across the miles. Even now, I feel sad over the family we won't see again for a long time, for the multitude of cousins our girls were just getting to know and love. But, I have perhaps learned the secret to being content in this matter; That is, knowing and accepting that there will always be some sorrow in my heart and I will always miss the place where I am not, and keeping in mind when the sorrow comes that neither place is my home. I was made for Heaven, and until I get there, no place will be the perfect, sorrow free place and I will always long for something better, and nothing--not Montana or Tennessee or anywhere else will fully satisfy, because He has set eternity in the heart of all humans.   And so, we will keep putting the miles on our minivan! Our kids are pretty good little travelers at this point;) I hope to finally settle soon (we have to be out of the house we're renting in a few weeks) and I hope--please God!!!--that this will be the last time I have to pack moving boxes for a long time!