Our plans had us moving into our new home this weekend. Dad and Blake drove up for the week to help me move kitchen boxes and closets and any other small things we could do on our own and we had friends lined up for the big U-Haul day that was to be yesterday. To say that we were ready would be an understatement. But, God gave us another opportunity to practice holding our best laid plans loosely and surrendering to his better plan for us by sending a snow storm, the second in just a couple of weeks (which has never happened since we have lived here), that put all of the final work on hold for the entire week. The finishing touches weren't able to be finished, which meant that a CO could not be issued, which meant that there would be no moving on Saturday. Like a little kid, my heart threw it's own little temper tantrum when I realized that I wouldn't be getting my way. I knew in my mind that someway, somehow God's plan was better than ours, but I had really been pretty pumped about our plan.
Instead of burning the midnight oil by running back and forth between houses and hauling boxes and setting up my new kitchen, we did a lot of sitting by the fireplace watching the Olympics and drinking hot chocolate. Instead of pizza on paper plates, I spent a lot of time cooking real meals to satisfy the hunger that comes from a day spent out in the snow. It was a really busy week in the sense that our home was a flurry of friends and family and food, but it was a very chill sort of busy. The best kind of busy when I let myself notice it. Once I got out of my own way, I realized that the week was kind of a gift. My family got to spend our last full week in this home that we've loved so much doing what we do best; enjoying and taking care of people.
And it made me even more excited about our new home because that's been our entire focus throughout all these years of planning and praying and dreaming, that it would be a place where we can welcome people in and take care of them. That we could have a place where people could come and be comfortable staying with us and then leave refreshed. A place where the friends of our six kids might want to hang out over the next 16 years. A place where our five adult sons could bring their future wives and children and our daughter could bring her husband and family and we could be together. We are imagining basement rooms filled with bunkbeds as the foundation for cousin relationships that will shape the people our grandchildren will grow into and the family friendships they will form. We look forward to having our morning coffee out on the porch with little grandbabies in our laps while I trick my daughters-in-law into adoring me for insisting that they sleep in while they are in my home. :)
Big once-a-year mission trips probably won't be a reality for a family of our size, but our home can be used as an investment that we make into the lives of others. We might not ever make it to the villages of Africa, but we pray that we would use this home God has given us to build relationships that reflect the gospel right here in our own small town. Our hope is that we would get to live in this home until the day one of our kids wants to take it over and grow their own family up in it and we can hardly even imagine all of the ways God might allow us to use it for his glory in that time.
For now, I'm really hoping that the Lord and I agree that this would be a great week to move in... If so, we'll be moving in on what would have been mom and dad's 45th wedding anniversary and that seems pretty fitting.
Instead of burning the midnight oil by running back and forth between houses and hauling boxes and setting up my new kitchen, we did a lot of sitting by the fireplace watching the Olympics and drinking hot chocolate. Instead of pizza on paper plates, I spent a lot of time cooking real meals to satisfy the hunger that comes from a day spent out in the snow. It was a really busy week in the sense that our home was a flurry of friends and family and food, but it was a very chill sort of busy. The best kind of busy when I let myself notice it. Once I got out of my own way, I realized that the week was kind of a gift. My family got to spend our last full week in this home that we've loved so much doing what we do best; enjoying and taking care of people.
And it made me even more excited about our new home because that's been our entire focus throughout all these years of planning and praying and dreaming, that it would be a place where we can welcome people in and take care of them. That we could have a place where people could come and be comfortable staying with us and then leave refreshed. A place where the friends of our six kids might want to hang out over the next 16 years. A place where our five adult sons could bring their future wives and children and our daughter could bring her husband and family and we could be together. We are imagining basement rooms filled with bunkbeds as the foundation for cousin relationships that will shape the people our grandchildren will grow into and the family friendships they will form. We look forward to having our morning coffee out on the porch with little grandbabies in our laps while I trick my daughters-in-law into adoring me for insisting that they sleep in while they are in my home. :)
Big once-a-year mission trips probably won't be a reality for a family of our size, but our home can be used as an investment that we make into the lives of others. We might not ever make it to the villages of Africa, but we pray that we would use this home God has given us to build relationships that reflect the gospel right here in our own small town. Our hope is that we would get to live in this home until the day one of our kids wants to take it over and grow their own family up in it and we can hardly even imagine all of the ways God might allow us to use it for his glory in that time.
For now, I'm really hoping that the Lord and I agree that this would be a great week to move in... If so, we'll be moving in on what would have been mom and dad's 45th wedding anniversary and that seems pretty fitting.