Two whole years have passed since the last time I blogged. Why?
Things are still mostly the same on the outside. I think I was waiting for some momentous direction that I could happily blog about pursuing. But that's not the truth of what God is doing in us.
We are again at my parents (we moved last winter and then moved back after the house we were living in sold ... which was our goal, to help some friends sell their house ... long story made short). Greg was a tour guide for two summers and spent the winters feverishly looking for non-seasonal work. The kids got 2 years older. My sister got married and celebrated her first anniversary.
In some ways I feel like we've been on hold for a two years ... Now, I know that we've grown and changed and come to know God and ourselves better, but some days that doesn't feel very fulfilling. I'm a doer. Greg's a doer. We like to know where we belong and then be there 100%. But God has closed the doors to our ideas of that so far. It's not as though we haven't tried to figure it out. It's not as if other people haven't suggested things. We tried to move ... to the sunny south first, to be near Greg's family next, somewhere out of my parent's house. But then God ridiculously closes the door. Oh, Greg's degree is 100% online? So we don't have to move there? We've tried to rent nearby (and look almost every day) ... wait, what is that other little house in the backyard? Oh, there's a single middle aged man who lives in the backyard? Does the house have all 4 walls in the basement? Oh, did I know that I should ask that? It's almost funny. Almost. We've tried, then, to engage here. I am heading up Kids' Church at our local church and enjoying it. Greg is helping and filling in the pulpit when Dad's out of town. The kids are taking swimming lessons at the pool and going to Wednesday Kids' Club at a church nearby.
Greg just started a full-time new job with great possibility. He's working for a major insurance company that allows him to set his own hours and work from home ... never on weekends, rarely in the evenings. That kind of job is crazy ... way more than we were hoping for. Exactly what we were praying for. He's also almost finished with his Master's. Just one more class and a thesis. Hah. I suppose that's been a big part of these past two years. Maybe I forgot to mention that.
We also participated in a full week of "get to know God and yourself and get free from all that junk" time together last fall. I'd say that is the biggest thing that's happened in 2 years. I had no idea some of the junk that I held inside that God wanted me to be free from. Little by little, layer by layer, I am becoming who He wants me to be inside and out and learning to believe His truth about me and see the world through those eyes.
So after 2 years, what are we doing? Just being. I guess that's what I'm learning most. I don't belong to God because of what I can do for Him or because He wants to "use" me (though He really does like touching the world through us). I don't belong to Him because I am so good at being self-sufficient that He keeps me on without much trouble. I belong to Him because He loves me. I belong to Him because He loved me way before I even knew Him.
Someday we'll move. Someday we'll figure things out. Someday might be tomorrow. I hope so. Then again, I've been hoping so for 2 years. I guess that's what hope is: standing on the porch and looking for what's coming. Sometimes it just takes longer to get here.
