Togetherness

So many thoughts that the tips of my fingers cannot express at present. Tomorrow is moving day. An ambiguous day that has been popping up in my and Andrew's vocabulary for the last two months. A reality, a bittersweet reality.

Last night Andrew and I spent a few hours with the Simonis family, eating homemade pizza and marveling at God's handiwork in baby Luke. As Todd and Elizabeth prayed so many blessings and prophecies over us, one thing Todd prayed stuck with me--that patience is a sign of trust, and trust a sign of relationship. I don't really feel like this is the "ultimate test" in patience and trust for us, but rather it's setting us up for the next time when patience and trust will be needed in greater measure. Not that this is easy, by any means--it's very hard actually. Baby steps--wobbly, head-bobbing, Daddy-holding-your-hands baby steps. And it's a tangible season of our lives in our relationship with Christ. Touch, touch, touch.

This summer, my immediate family has literally been crunched up all in our house. It doesn't seem crowded when you're a kid, but when you're all adults, and you're all there [plus two spouses], one person can't sneeze without the other catching a cold. It has been the most cursed blessing, or the most blessed curse. We have gotten to know one another better, laughed, fought, cried, forgiven, laughed some more and learned more than we ever wanted to know about each other's gifts, short-comings, hobbies, habits, hobnobbing and loblollying. [Those last two aren't really words, I don't think, but I couldn't think of two more adjectives]. HAHA--wait, I just looked them up on Dictionary.com--Hobnobbing: to associate on very friendly terms; to drink together. Loblolly: a mire, mud hole; a very thick gruel. Yep, so basically our summer together has been as gruel-y as a mud hole and as sweeeeet as a friendly drink. I can't say that I loved every single moment of it, [there's a reason for that "leave and cleave" clause] but I hope I didn't take it for granted. Family is family. And I would give any of them one of my $160,000 kidneys if they needed it.

For now, everything's in boxes--my whole life--something about moving makes a person want to downsize. Goodwill has found the pot at the end of the rainbow this summer just from the things we've gotten rid of. My childhood bedroom is a different color, with different furniture in it and an almost empty closet. Mom and Pop Armstrong are on their way with our moving truck, as Noah and Melody's U-Haul sits stuffed to the gills in our driveway. Everything changes, nothing stays the same.

As sad as I am to leave home, I am just as excited about this adventure of not knowing, and not knowing with the love of my life by my side. There are people in Chapel Hill that we are going to love, dearly love, that we have yet to meet. There is a church body that we are going to serve in. A home we will inhabit. A God who is bigger than having no friends and being practically crippled without a GPS. Bigger than the bureaucracy of the nursing employment world. The same God who called Abram out of his comfortable life to give him a new name, a new home, and a covenant [Genesis 17]. Sounds like marriage to me!

My next post will be from my new nest. Until then, sayonara, a rrivederci, a revoir, adios amigos!