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The girls on the front porch of our house last spring.  Ansley making friends with one of the many critters that live in the yard.

    
     If you know me you understand that I am not very sentimental and as a child I was never homesick.  Those 2 things make this post I'm about to write seem strange.  Here is the deal... We're moving and I'm sad about letting go of our home.  It's not like we are moving across the country.  We are literally moving 2 streets over.  So why am I having such a hard time with this?  We are closing on our house today, but we will still have a couple of weeks to get out of one home and into the other.  Last night I was just a mess over the whole thing even though it seems completely obvious that this is God's plan and he worked things out in an incredible way.   
     We have been in this house for almost exactly 5 years so that means Ansley was about a year and half when we moved in.  The house was 3 years old when we moved in, I think.  From the start I never wanted to live in the neighborhood we live in because it is a new neighborhood.  I liked living in a semi-new home, but my beef with the neighborhood is there are NO mature trees.  Yes, every yard has at least 1 tree but there is very little shade provided by them for anyone over 3 feet tall.  You may be asking what is the big deal about shade?  I'm sure you're aware that living in central Texas means living with very long hot summers.  My children love to be outside, but it is so dad gum hot that we can only stay out there for 10 minutes before we are all drenched with sweat and ready for relief.  Just trust me shade makes ALL the difference.  Anyway, the yard issue was the whole reason we were trying to sell the house.  We did sell the house, and we are closing today so shouldn't I be excited??? 
     Now consider all the other details and maybe you can understand my delimma.  The house we are currently in has a great floor plan that meets are family's needs so well.  We got to pick the paint and the flooring and had the freedom to do whatever we chose with our space (more explanation on why that seems like a big deal in a minute).  Ansley has made friends with all the gieckos and toads in the yard.  Adalynn loves to use our big garden tub to set up tea partys on the side of the tub during bath time.  We run around and around in circles through the kitchen,living, dining area because of the open floorplan playing chase, hide and seek, or just to wear Ansley out ;). I want to have those memories forever and moving means they are gonna end and my brain is just going to have to keep good mental pictures of it all.
     The next part of the story is the house we are moving into is the church's parsonage.  Let me just say up front that we are SO grateful for this oppurtunity and for all the people who have have labored to help get the place liveable.  I hope the following doesn't sound like I'm complaining because there is great potential in the place.  It has a yard with lots of big shade trees on an awesome street.  There is plenty of space in the house even if it's not laid out how I'd prefer.  But yall, it was a mess!  There were termites in the wall, holes in the walls, doors that wouldn't work, and a myriad of other things that needed to be addressed.  Today the house looks a lot more on the mend than it did 3 weeks ago, but if you walked in there I'm pretty sure you would all say, "Wow is this place gonna be ready in the 2 weeks?"  I don't know.  I'm just praying for all the walls to be repaired so we can paint and get flooring put back in the place.  Everything else we can do while we are in there I guess. 
     Earlier I mentioned we had the freedom to choose what we wanted and stuff.  I said that because the new house isn't really ours, it belongs to the church.  And last night during my greiving process the Lord was kind enough to gently remind me that nothing I have is really mine anyway.  All good things are a gift from above and I am entrusted to steward them well.  But this situation just made it so real that decisions aren't really up to me.  I am supposed to get every direction from the Lord and make decisions with His kingdom purpose in mind.  All summer God was teaching Jay and me about excess and using what we have for his glory not our comfort, but I'll tell you putting it into practice like this is hard.  I want to be a woman who lives what I believe so I am trusting God, because he his faithful, to make this house he has so graciously provided into a wonderful home for a new season. I'm laying down my rights to decide what "home" should look like and I am letting go of my consumeristic desire and choose not to be lured by the "updated", "pretty", and "modern".  Yall help me though because I'm already working on my disclaimer for when guests come over. ;)

 Lamentations 3:22-23 22 Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. 23 They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.