All About Him

I have a big post swirling in my head, but as of yet I have not found the time to write it down.  Today will not likely be the day that happens, at least not right now.  I do want to share though that our family just found out that we will be moving across the country.  This is our first move as a family.  We have been in Florida for 16 years.  Our children have grown up here.  This is their home.

Following God is so exciting, usually challenging, ALWAYS right -- but, the change part just plain stinks! I can not express how it tears my heart out when my children cry.  How I feel when they try to put on a brave face with tears streaming down their faces.  It rips at my soul when I see their sweet friends' eyes grow huge and young men six feet tall walk away to keep from breaking down.  Oh my goodness, God has blessed us here with godly friends.  My kids have the BEST friends in the world and the group that has surrounded them, lifted them up, and encouraged them through their childhoods and now young adult lives has been a blessing straight from God.  I am begging Him to just give them each one or two friends that even come close to the many they have now.  If I meet two families that encourage me half as much as the dozen or so that I know now, I will feel beyond blessed.

I also have to say that we have the most amazing kids in the world.  Two of them are seniors in High School, so this move really couldn't come at a worse time.  However, they know that we have prayed about this and that we feel God's peace around the whole thing, and they have been so compassionate to their Daddy. The peace we feel however is God's peace - NOT ours.  It does not feel peaceful at all to me to hurt my children or their friends.  It does not feel peaceful at all to me to move to a place totally and completely unfamiliar to me and 2,000 miles from our families.  However, it feels right - it feels like where God is leading us.  I don't know why.  

The kids are sad, understandably.  Two of them are semi-excited, the other two are just plain sad.  If you know my kids, you know which ones are which.  I have peace about the move, but as I said, it is the peace that comes only from Him - not myself.  Stan is excited about the challenge of the position he has accepted, but for him too, it is bittersweet.  He has had some of the same co-workers for twenty years.  His last day was horrendous for him.  He came home looking like he had been completely wrung out.  He will miss so many people that he is close to.

I will be sharing more I'm sure as time goes on.  The kids and I still have a few months in town while the older two finish up their dual enrollment semester as a local college.  Stan will be back and forth for a while and we will all be settled in our new home after the first of the year.  I covet your prayers.  Emotions are running high around here, we have some other dear friends who are moving as well, and I'm trying to keep some semblance of normalcy with our schooling - of course, add cleaning out, packing, and caring for a toddler to that and you can imagine the end result is mostly just chaotic!  

Still, the peace is there - always.  It is all about where God wants us, that is all we have ever wanted and it is all we want now.  We would follow Him to the ends of the earth.  How could we not?  We don't know what we are going to do in the wild, wild West, but we know that He is there, too.  I have begged Him for some "revelation," some indication of what His plans are for us there, and what I have gotten over and over again is this, "It is going to be good."  I have followed Him long enough to know that sometimes "good" feels bad for a little while if we let our flesh enter into the equation, so I am clinging to that promise.  "It is going to be good."  He has never let me down, and I am certain He doesn't intend to start now.