We have seen the seasons come and go...spring with its gorgeous blossoms, summer with its gardens and activities, fall with its phenomenal leaves and winter with its small town festivities. We have flowed with the seasons, doing the next thing...always enjoying the rhythm of this place. This little spot in Georgia will forever be embedded in our memories and hearts.
And like the ever-changing cycle of seasons, so our lives have also flowed. We've experienced the loss of our son Elijah, who passed silently from my womb and into the arms of Jesus. We've experienced the addition of our youngest daughter through the miracle of adoption. There has been more laughter than we can recount, and there have been more tears than we'd like to admit. We've flowed from one event, one emotion to the next...trusting the rhythm that God set for our lives. These woods have been the backdrop of birthday parties, cookouts, harvest parties, family visits, home church, homeschooling, missionary book clubs, tea parties, sewing classes, watermelon-seed-spitting contests, egg hunts, orphan hosting, yard sales, tree climbing, cookie baking, cake decorating, nature walks, exercising, bike riding and the hundreds of simple daily routines that make a house a home. We've experienced first glasses, lost teeth, broken hearts, mended hearts, scrapes, triumphs, new churches, death of grandparents, birth of new friendships, death of pets, and the joy of adding a puppy and a kitten.
And this little house in the big woods has cupped it all.
Now we follow God as in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. The cloud is lifting now and moving to Texas, and so we follow. And don't ever ever doubt how very GOOD God is. Yes, He let us walk through some incredibly difficult, elbow-in-the-gut things, but nothing is ever wasted in His Hands. And if we wait patiently, He will always bring us out to the other side. And don't miss this: it will always be for His glory. All the pain we were allowed to experience in these growing years, He is channeling for His reasons, His plans.
He is opening the door for us to work with a ministry that serves the needy in 8 different Texas counties. To reach the needy, we have to understand what being needy feels like ourselves. We have to sit in those shoes to some degree...to understand what it feels like to be hurt, to be alone, to feel rejected, to be misunderstood, to have needs (emotional, physical, spiritual) that nobody knows about. Sometimes God walks us through the valleys with all its surging pain so that He can use us to reach others who are hurting. The challenges and pain only hollow out our vessel so that God can pour His love through us. I don't know what lies ahead on this road we are walking, but I do know my God. He's leading, so I follow...step by step.
I find myself now at this crossroads. I look back down the road at Georgia, and with fondness I stop and thank God for all it has held. Letting go hurts, and this will not come without tears. And then I turn my eyes ahead and point my feet forward to Texas. Texas is my home and has never for one second left my heart. It is the place of family and friends and college football and love and smoked brisket and unparalleled homeschooling freedom. And God, in His plan that I will never be able to figure out, has seen fit to lead me back to my beloved Texas. And my heart overflows.
