Time, Change, and Moving on...

Written July 7th, 2015 on the night before our anniversary.....



I've had a bunch of jumbled up thoughts running around in my head for weeks now, with never enough time to put them all down on paper and make sense of them.

On July 8th Dave and I celebrated our 9th anniversary, and we weren't even in the same state at the time.  In the past 2 months we have gotten an offer on our house, accepted the offer, packed up our belongings, moved them into storage, closed on the house, moved in with some releatives temporarily, helped deliver a clients baby, continued working my other job, and went through so many emotional tailspins of decisions that I don't even remember them all...I'm just glad they are over, and now here, on the eve of our 9th anniversary I am sitting on the couch in a home that isn't even mine.  My husband is in Pennsylvania on business...getting ready to go to bed on the eve of his first day, of the first taste he'll have, of his new job.  In the middle of the changes and the offer and the house hunts, my husbands current job offered him an amazing promotion if we would consider relocating for a few years at one of his companies satellite facilities for Dave to help manage their research and development lab.  The thought of something like this happening in the middle of all of this, had never occurred to me.  Though it makes sense now, and I absolutely without a doubt know God is leading us there.

A few weeks ago as my husband sat me down on the couch to tell me the news about his offer I was skeptical, but open minded.  I cried tears of the unknown, of being tired of not knowing our "next," but I was accepting of whatever God needed to do to lead us where we needed to go.

The past few weeks have given me much time to wonder and pray, and it's interesting what God can do in stillness.  In times when we don't know his plans, and yet so desperately desire to know, to plan, to move forward.  He knows that there is value in the stillness.

One of the thoughts I've been contemplating and praying about is about my marriage.  When I stood on an altar 9 years ago, I had no idea, where God would take us in 9 short years, and I can honestly say today that I appreciate the next 9 years or 40 years...whatever God will give us, even more, because of what He has done with us in the last 9.  I had big dreams on that altar.  I had my big white dress, and my happily ever after.  I had a house with a white picket fence, and a home full of babies, and a carefree, barefooted mama chasing after their dreams with them. That was my dream.

 I remember a year or so ago looking at Dave in the middle of an argument and saying harshly "You aren't who I married anymore!"  At the time I was full stuck on myself....how dare he...go changing on me!  How dare you shake up my dreams!  And in the past few weeks I've seen beauty in change that I never saw before.  For it wasn't until now that I realized....of course he has changed!  I have changed.   Life is change, and when you choose to do life with someone else and are committed in a covenant relationship to one another....change is inevitable...It's not a question of whether or not someone will change.  They will.  It's choosing to move forward with them even when they do.

 There have been times that Dave has made dumb decisions.  There have been times that I have made dumb decisions.  In my own selfishness I have a tendency to focus more on Dave's dumb decisions than my own.  In reality...we both can be pretty dumb sometimes.

I've hoped and prayed for a lot of things in my life.  When we got married I wanted desperately to stay home with my children when we started a family, only to find out that we couldn't afford it when it finally happened.  It was a time when I was angry at God, and Dave for "making me do this" thing I didn't want to do.  But then, fast forward a few years and now I work from home, and this is really hard too, and I look back, and I thank God for the growth that he brought to me in that season, because it brought of me a love for working moms that I never would have had had He not taken me down that path.  It helped me to let go of a judgement that was seeded in me about other moms and how they take care of their families.

I've been dreaming this picture perfect pinterest life dream since the day we got married and even before....during wedding planning, and back up even more....back to the days when I was a carefree little girl and had no idea what real life could bring.  Each time we've been met with changes in our marriage, it's like a small piece of my dream kept dying.  My heart ached with longing to just be.  To go somewhere and be grounded.  Stable.  Build a life.  Stay there, and be comfortable and watch our babies grow old and welcome our grandbabies into our arms.

But this...this whole scenario...has had me emotionally all over the place the last few months, and finally....finally I felt a break through.  I felt myself break, as I watched the dream I've been holding onto so tightly my whole life, drift away.  You see I'd been holding onto this white picket fence, dream home, stable family dream my whole life, and never had it occurred to me, that God created all families, and that all families aren't the same.  It never occurred to me that my dreams....though good ones...weren't His, and when He tells you to go somewhere, you don't mess with that.  You just don't, and I know full well, He wanted that dream of mine today.  He wanted my security in Him...to trust Him fully with my family and what that looks like wherever He takes us.  To trust Him that a home is wherever we are.  A home is not defined by certain parameters, square footage or perfect location.  A home...my home....is where my family is.  My home...is where my God leads our family to.  And though I can honestly say in the last few weeks I've watched the death of my dream...something I've held onto so tightly for years....I didn't realize how much of a burden would be lifted off if I let the dream die.  I'd put my entire security in that dream for so long, that it was that dream that I was fighting for, not God's dreams.  Not eternity.

And so on the eve of our 9th anniversary, my heart too has changed.  I too am not the same person Dave married.  For better, and for worse.  We both chose to do life together...regardless of all the changes that come.

 I have no idea what's coming in the future.  His company is offering to bring us back in a few years to Chicago, but we also have the option to stay if we want to, and to that I say God....wherever you lead us.  We are but vessels here to do His work, and if I miss that in the process of crying over moving...again...and I put my whole security in things that don't even matter...then I've missed it.  I've missed it entirely.

I've come to see that life is really what you make of it.  I could sit and cry and drag my feet the whole way out to Pennsylvania.....or I can stand beside my husband and go where God is leading us to go, and trust that He has always taken care of me.  His plans are far better than I've ever dreamt up what mine could be.

So yes....we've both changed for the better, and what started out as a couple of babies sharing big dreams and saying "I do"...

Has resulted in crazy adventures and plans I never had for us in the first place, but as I am beginning to understand...God's plans and dreams are so much better than mine ever were in the first place!

Blessings,