It has been a very frustrating few weeks. At the start of the week (a few weeks back) we made the decision to move back ‘east’ closer to family and friends at the end of the year. This decision was two years in the making (I kid you not) with many competing factors both sides. It means starting again. It’s a big call, it was a big call to move out this way in the first place and we might’ve said we weren’t every going to move back that way. It’s leaving stuff we like and love a lot. It is hard.

During the week we had a random opportunity to look at a house to see if we wanted to take over a lease – 6 months ahead of schedule with 48hrs to make the decision. Not in the plan. I was going to look by myself and then someone ran into my car so Geoff wound up coming with me. We like it a lot. We applied. If Geoff hadn’t been there we probably wouldn’t have made the call.

And then things stopped. It’s been over a week. The agent cannot reach the landlord and as the clock ticks so does the overlap of rent with a fixed move date and the inability to give notice on where we are currently until we know for sure.

It’s driving me crazy.

And yet God is throwing random bits of work my way that seem to match the cost time that overlaps. He’s got that bit. I hope. God is also talking to me about house and home and what I want that or what that could look like. It’s infancy stuff. Nothing concrete more a, ‘Hey, get this on your radar you!’. Pinterest is house deep and thats super fun (seriously I’m a tad obsessed) but what other elements make up home? What do you want home to look like? What can you do with a new opportunity?

Here is an opportunity to start again. Yet again. Go again you say. Go again. It’s terribly Dr. Suess. New place, new church, maybe a new job? Back again to where we started in the first place but in a new way.

And I read the story of John’s birth. New things. Not following old paths or traditions or names.

Luke 1:59-66

On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him Zechariah after his father. But his mother said, ‘No; he is to be called John.’ They said to her, ‘None of your relatives has this name.’ Then they began motioning to his father to find out what name he wanted to give him. He asked for a writing-tablet and wrote, ‘His name is John.’ And all of them were amazed. Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began to speak, praising God. Fear came over all their neighbours, and all these things were talked about throughout the entire hill country of Judea. All who heard them pondered them and said, ‘What then will this child become?’ For, indeed, the hand of the Lord was with him.

Is God in this? Yes. Will we even get approved for the house? I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. I hope so. I like it. I hope too this is an opportunity of beginning. As we roll in through the next few months with a new baby (oh yeh there’s that too – besides possibly moving in two weeks, throwing a 2 year old birthday party, shooting one more wedding whilst being 34 weeks pregnant… ah crap), a new life  -I would like things to pan out in a more deliberate sense where we stop and ask God, what is home? What do you want that to look like? Blow our conceptions.

Because he sure as hell is working in a different way this time.

Christianity Life

“and one hundred and sixty one days later, inexplicably, in the middle of the peeling of the vegetables, it passed” – Steph Judd

Today I am encouraged by this.
I am reminded of life progressing around the everyday. Of God using little things and time and little things again. Of weariness ceasing, of joy in unexpected moments. Of faithfulness and fruition and of peace in the mundane.

Little stories that are parts of bigger ones that allow a glimpse into hopeful new worlds.

Hooray for people who write. This makes me want to be one of you again.

General