thoughts | goodbye august... wait! september is half over?

Oh August.  I wasn't ready for you to leave.

I dream of summer all year long.  And then it comes, and before I have a chance to really, truly, actually, thaw out, it's gone.  And like some unspoken, "North of Chicago" rule, the calendar page flips to Sept. 1 and it's all over.  We go from 80 degrees and neon green grass covered golf courses to orange topped trees and a choppy wave covered grayish blue lake.  The leaves seem to instantly wither and jump off the trees before you have a chance to even get used to writing "September" in your checkbook (are the cool kids still writing checks these days?).

It was 40 degrees when I woke up this morning.

I realized that it's nearly the middle of the month and I never updated my summer bucket list (five for August).  I could sit here and type out some pretty fabulous justifications on why I didn't do half of the things I intended.  But I won't.  I would like to cash in my "get out of jail free" card.  No excuses.

And someone should probably stop me the next time I start coming up with a list of things to get done in the next 30 days.  Yeah, its probably not going to happen.

We moved.  

The above sentence seems very innocent.  I should add, we moved 11 people, 3 cats, 1 horse and a huge house into boxes, freight trucks, storage units, and a rental house.  Oh, and a barn.  The horse is staying in a barn (not a freight truck, I haven't researched it, but I'm quite sure that would be illegal).  We also were gifted a donkey two days ago, but this is another story for another day.  You would think that moving less than 10 miles from one house to another would be an breeze, but I am convinced that cross-country is the easier task.  I think my little Jeep was loaded and unloaded approximately 1 million times.  Today was the first time I realized that the backseat was empty.  Completely empty.  Okay, fine, so my giant L.L. Bean tote was still in there, but it gets to stay because it holds important things (like extra cardigan sweaters, newspapers and stuff like that).  Yes ma'am, we are just winning at the game of life over here.

The past month has felt overwhelming.  And I hate to even say that because I know that there are real people out there dealing with truly difficult situations, and I feel like a wimp.  My version of "overwhelming" just happens to be a pile-up of fancy problems.  When my parents first started talking about moving early this year, I figured it would take some time, that our house would never sell and that everything would be fine (glass half full) and I went on with life.  Then the next thing I know, our house sells, Mom and Dad find a new and very historic home that they want to add onto, start meeting with architects and builders and I'm googling best "portable storage containers".  We found a rental house to stay in for the next year.  Then U-Line started delivering pallets of cardboard boxes to our door and we had kids playing with sharpies and rolls of tape.  It got a little dicey there for a while when we realized that Cal was missing and the last time anyone had seen him was three days ago when we packed up the sleeping bags.  Totally kidding.  No children, or animals were harmed in the moving of this house!

It all moved so quickly and seemed very surreal that we would be leaving our house.  Life was really good for us.  We had plenty of space to spread out and we were constantly entertaining guests, and sometimes our house felt like a bed and breakfast due to the amount of friends staying overnight.  But we loved it.  I had my own little room that was more like a nest than anything.  Neat, tidy, all to myself and life was really good.  EVERYTHING. WAS. TOO. GOOD.

A wise man once told me "Sometimes we get too comfortable, and then God needs to move us".

Let me tell you, that was a WORD.  True in my life and applicable to the right now.  I needed to hear that.  I feel like God had given us a sweet season of life and (though not without pain, and I should also add, that this new season is not without its sweetness.  The Christian life is a mingling of the two.  And God is always good.)  But because He loves us and because its easy to get soft and to stop depending on Him for our strength, He chooses to move us.  We leave the familiar for the unfamiliar and we are once again forced to rely on God for our only solace.  We see beautiful story after beautiful story in the bible of how God takes His children from one place to another, because those in-between places teach us some of the most important lessons we'll ever learn.  More about ourselves and our weaknesses, and more of God's grace and faithfulness.  Moving requires faith.  But God provides everything we need because He is the Faithful One.

I've tried to keep all of this in perspective as we've made the transition.  As people and friends ask how things are, I'm quick to remind them that everything is fine.  Really it is.  Sure, our kitchen may be half the size, but hey! it takes half the time to clean!  I'm sharing a room with two messy girls who shall remain nameless, but hey! I now get to enjoy the "late, late show with Gracie" every night (oh golly, she is animated!).  I'm also five minutes away from the office and more importantly, Starbucks.  Oh, and pizza delivery.  It has been ten long years since we've lived in range of the pizza delivery man.  You should have seen my face when I realized that I can order a gluten free pizza from my couch and have it delivered in twenty minutes.  Welcome to the big city Abbe!

I know that a year flies by like nothing and I want to be able to look at this time in our little rental house and say "it was hard, but it was good".  To dwell on the sweetness.  I know that I will fail miserably at being gracious and that I will miss nine out of ten lessons that God is "clearly" trying to teach me.  But my heart's desire in this season, is that God would use it (ALL. OF. IT.) in my life for His own glory.  And He will.  He already has.