Ramblings and Thoughts

Please excuse me ahead of time as this may ramble around jumping from thought to thought.  Much is floating through my head due to the impending move.  Being in “hurry up and wait” mode gives me too much time to think and having Ron not here in the evenings makes it that much more time to think.  Really it all started on Wednesday  while mowing which is usually the time when the Lord brings people to mind to pray for.  He did some but more than anything remembrances kept coming to mind.  Those brought me to roaming through scrapbooks and smiling.

Ron and I (and the girls) have had some adventures.  We went into marriage with this idea and rough plan of what life would be like.  We would soon move to seminary and I would work the whole 3 years to pay for part of it.  After seminary we would head to the mission field and then we would start a family.  We had prayed and we knew we were following God’s plan we just had no idea the twists and turns that He had along the path.  Seminary turned out to be 4 years.  2 years in we had Johanna and in the last few months we had Naomi.  We were told to get experience before we came to the mission field.  We took an internship which ended roughly and by then we had been rejected by 2 different mission teams.  Ron went back to his old engineering job from before seminary, we bought a 1000 sq ft condo that was way over priced and had our little Gracie.  Ron got transferred to upstate NY, where that job went south.  Then we moved here to Lynchburg for a new job.  We have been here almost 4 years.  It has been a long stay for us and we thought we would be here longer.  We had no intention of leaving, we were quite happy.

We have lived many places but God always put us in a good church family.  We have been blessed.  It is so cool when Christmas time rolls around because I think we are pretty close to having friends in almost every state and close to double digits for overseas friends.  I can sit and look through my address book or facebook and think of so many wonderful experiences and encounters.  We have many friends who have floated through our life that we have been close to for a time and learned/gleaned from them.  I think leaving friends is always the hardest part of a move.

Ecclesiastes 3

¹ There is an appointed time for everything.   And there is a time for every event under heaven—

² A time to give birth and a time to die;
A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.
³ A time to kill and a time to heal;
A time to tear down and a time to build up.
⁴ A time to weep and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn and a time to dance.
⁵ A time to throw stones and a time to gather stones;
A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing.
⁶ A time to search and a time to give up as lost;
A time to keep and a time to throw away.
⁷ A time to tear apart and a time to sew together;
A time to be silent and a time to speak.
⁸ A time to love and a time to hate;
A time for war and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes was the first book I did a bible study on by myself.  I had been on our church high school retreat and it was the book our Youth Pastor spoke on.  It hit home so hard and made me take my faith as my own and to get serious about it.  In all honesty I have always found this passage a bit irritating.  It is so hard to be mad a t God when it says there is a time for everything in our lives.  This passage came to me while mowing.  It is only now 20 years later that I am able to say that every bit of it has been true in my life at some point.  God does know what He is talking about. 

So I am trying to always look to this next move as a new season, a time for the Lord to do something in my life.  I had my moment of being mad at God and it is over.  He is in control of this time.  Ron may have to be away from us for a bit. The girls and I may have to hang in limbo here in Lynchburg for a bit while we wait for the house to sell.  Sure it will not be easy but God is at work even in the “hurry up and wait”.  I am slow to learn but I am catching on, even if it has taken me to the 10^th move to get it.

For those of you who are reading this from high school or Annandale, VA; Jackson, MS or RTS; Laurel, MS; Scotia, NY and surrounding areas; or from here in Lynchburg, VA please know that you have helped to make me and my family who we are.  You have been or will be missed, your friendship long distance as it may be is still valued.  You are loved by our family.