This summer was just what my soul desperately needed...
Slowness. Intentionality. Savoring. Just...being. We had a long and beautiful Spring with more rain than usual (more than I can remember in my whole life, really). Everything that would have normally been brown and dry was still alive and magnificently green for weeks longer than normal, and it was so enjoyable! Brad mowed lawns for our pastor's lawn care business, and the girls and I enjoyed the great outdoors in a multitude of ways. It was, as far as I can remember, the first summer in years that we weren't either traveling or madly house hunting and moving and stressed to the max. Literally, time seemed to stop most days, as the sun lingered well past ten each evening, long after little ones were tucked in to bed.
While Brad worked, we got into a groove, taking care of our pastor's gardens while they were on vacation for three weeks, and taking care of our neighbor's chickens several times while she traveled here and there. We started every morning with a quick breakfast, and then headed off to do our "chores" (though I hesitate to call feeding chickens and taking care of vegetable gardens "chores", since we so thoroughly enjoy those activities). We'd water and pull weeks and eat a handful of raspberries, and then head off to either ride bikes or take a hike before it got hot for the day. My memories of July will not soon fade! My eighth month of pregnancy was dreamy (I'm actually being serious)...I felt energized and healthy and like I could carry this little girl around forever! Having all that energy was such a blessing, as we are in a short season where my littlest, being three and a half, can actually ride her little bike for quite a ways and keep up with her sisters pretty well, and all of them can hike or take long walks without anyone needing to be carried half the time. I say a short season because it just started recently, and it's all going to end here in a few weeks, when I start all over again with another baby. And so, we took full advantage and soaked up biking and hiking, just us four girls each morning.
My other simple pleasure this summer was eating dinner on the porch each night. We had a covered porch in the front of the house, so no matter how hot it was at dinnertime, it was really quite comfortable to eat outside. I don't think we ate more than one meal inside for two solid months! Simple summer meals made without turning on the oven as much as possible, eating ALL the farmer's market bounty we could get our hands on, savoring the flavors and the sounds of summer and just slow time spent as a family around the table. After dinner the girls would get back on their bikes and ride until at last, we would have to be semi-responsible parents and call them in to get ready for bed before dark.
Popsicles and copious amounts of watermelon and Flathead cherries, live music in the park, friends splashing through sprinklers in the back yard, cold brew coffee, neighborhood chickens dropping by, plenty of time playing in the woods, miles logged walking alongside littles on bicycles, late night talks with friends on the porch, and countless wilted wildflower bouquets gifted to me by proud chubby little hands. MY HEART COULDN'T HAVE BEEN MORE FULL.
And then I remember one day as I stood quietly watering the raspberry patch, marveling at fact that life was so peaceful. My second thought was, "Uh-oh, what's about to happen?" It seems to be a definitive pattern in our married life, that the Lord provides us with an abundance of peace, allowing us to be rested and filled to the brim just before something difficult comes. Sure enough, within two days of me having that thought, Brad got an unexpected call from Waco, TX, three job interviews, and two offers on the table. If we said yes, we would have eleven days before we had to be on the road headed across the country. I would be 37 weeks pregnant.
We laid our options on the table. We talked pros and cons. We stayed up late into the night most nights talking, or sometimes just sitting quietly just thinking. We prayed...and prayed, and prayed some more. We asked for wise counsel. And then we made the seemingly crazy decision to say yes.
Here we are, a few extremely short weeks later, relocated thousands of miles from Montana, in a place we've joked about moving to for years. We live in Texas, Brad once again has a teaching job, the girls and I are homeschooling by morning, exploring our new city by afternoon, and acclimatizing to the heat and humidity of August in Texas! Life is strangely peaceful, and I don't think it has much to do with the details of life itself (packing, taking care of a thousand details to tie things up in one state followed by taking care of a thousand more details to get things started in another state, driving for five days, moving into an apartment, sharing one vehicle, navigating a new city with three kids, being two weeks from my due date, and starting a new homeschool year, plus learning to exist in such a small space as a family of five--soon to be six...these are not the life events that come together to create a peaceful feeling!) Rather, I can sense the Lord so deeply intertwined in every little detail of our life right now. I felt him in the midst of opposition from certain individuals as we made the decision to leave MT again. His peace sustained me in a way that is virtually unexplainable. I felt His presence on the road--not that the trip was easy, but as hard as it was, there was no anxiety (except for a momentary melt-down I had in a gas station in the middle of Kansas, where I suddenly felt we had come too far to turn back, yet we were so far from our destination I thought my poor body would never make it there!) When we got to this unfamiliar city, He provided eight of the kindest men to help Brad unload the U-Haul and a teenage girl to watch the girls while I helped direct the unloading (I'm a little bossy like that).
Slowly but surely, we are settling in. If the baby came today, it would be just fine. We are unpacked, we've met the midwife (and love her!), baby will share our room and everything is ready for her, we're a week into school, Brad's job is well underway, and amazingly enough, we have some semblance of routine going. Things are starting to feel familiar. Life in Texas has officially begun!
Slowness. Intentionality. Savoring. Just...being. We had a long and beautiful Spring with more rain than usual (more than I can remember in my whole life, really). Everything that would have normally been brown and dry was still alive and magnificently green for weeks longer than normal, and it was so enjoyable! Brad mowed lawns for our pastor's lawn care business, and the girls and I enjoyed the great outdoors in a multitude of ways. It was, as far as I can remember, the first summer in years that we weren't either traveling or madly house hunting and moving and stressed to the max. Literally, time seemed to stop most days, as the sun lingered well past ten each evening, long after little ones were tucked in to bed.
While Brad worked, we got into a groove, taking care of our pastor's gardens while they were on vacation for three weeks, and taking care of our neighbor's chickens several times while she traveled here and there. We started every morning with a quick breakfast, and then headed off to do our "chores" (though I hesitate to call feeding chickens and taking care of vegetable gardens "chores", since we so thoroughly enjoy those activities). We'd water and pull weeks and eat a handful of raspberries, and then head off to either ride bikes or take a hike before it got hot for the day. My memories of July will not soon fade! My eighth month of pregnancy was dreamy (I'm actually being serious)...I felt energized and healthy and like I could carry this little girl around forever! Having all that energy was such a blessing, as we are in a short season where my littlest, being three and a half, can actually ride her little bike for quite a ways and keep up with her sisters pretty well, and all of them can hike or take long walks without anyone needing to be carried half the time. I say a short season because it just started recently, and it's all going to end here in a few weeks, when I start all over again with another baby. And so, we took full advantage and soaked up biking and hiking, just us four girls each morning.
My other simple pleasure this summer was eating dinner on the porch each night. We had a covered porch in the front of the house, so no matter how hot it was at dinnertime, it was really quite comfortable to eat outside. I don't think we ate more than one meal inside for two solid months! Simple summer meals made without turning on the oven as much as possible, eating ALL the farmer's market bounty we could get our hands on, savoring the flavors and the sounds of summer and just slow time spent as a family around the table. After dinner the girls would get back on their bikes and ride until at last, we would have to be semi-responsible parents and call them in to get ready for bed before dark.
Popsicles and copious amounts of watermelon and Flathead cherries, live music in the park, friends splashing through sprinklers in the back yard, cold brew coffee, neighborhood chickens dropping by, plenty of time playing in the woods, miles logged walking alongside littles on bicycles, late night talks with friends on the porch, and countless wilted wildflower bouquets gifted to me by proud chubby little hands. MY HEART COULDN'T HAVE BEEN MORE FULL.
And then I remember one day as I stood quietly watering the raspberry patch, marveling at fact that life was so peaceful. My second thought was, "Uh-oh, what's about to happen?" It seems to be a definitive pattern in our married life, that the Lord provides us with an abundance of peace, allowing us to be rested and filled to the brim just before something difficult comes. Sure enough, within two days of me having that thought, Brad got an unexpected call from Waco, TX, three job interviews, and two offers on the table. If we said yes, we would have eleven days before we had to be on the road headed across the country. I would be 37 weeks pregnant.
We laid our options on the table. We talked pros and cons. We stayed up late into the night most nights talking, or sometimes just sitting quietly just thinking. We prayed...and prayed, and prayed some more. We asked for wise counsel. And then we made the seemingly crazy decision to say yes.
Here we are, a few extremely short weeks later, relocated thousands of miles from Montana, in a place we've joked about moving to for years. We live in Texas, Brad once again has a teaching job, the girls and I are homeschooling by morning, exploring our new city by afternoon, and acclimatizing to the heat and humidity of August in Texas! Life is strangely peaceful, and I don't think it has much to do with the details of life itself (packing, taking care of a thousand details to tie things up in one state followed by taking care of a thousand more details to get things started in another state, driving for five days, moving into an apartment, sharing one vehicle, navigating a new city with three kids, being two weeks from my due date, and starting a new homeschool year, plus learning to exist in such a small space as a family of five--soon to be six...these are not the life events that come together to create a peaceful feeling!) Rather, I can sense the Lord so deeply intertwined in every little detail of our life right now. I felt him in the midst of opposition from certain individuals as we made the decision to leave MT again. His peace sustained me in a way that is virtually unexplainable. I felt His presence on the road--not that the trip was easy, but as hard as it was, there was no anxiety (except for a momentary melt-down I had in a gas station in the middle of Kansas, where I suddenly felt we had come too far to turn back, yet we were so far from our destination I thought my poor body would never make it there!) When we got to this unfamiliar city, He provided eight of the kindest men to help Brad unload the U-Haul and a teenage girl to watch the girls while I helped direct the unloading (I'm a little bossy like that).
Slowly but surely, we are settling in. If the baby came today, it would be just fine. We are unpacked, we've met the midwife (and love her!), baby will share our room and everything is ready for her, we're a week into school, Brad's job is well underway, and amazingly enough, we have some semblance of routine going. Things are starting to feel familiar. Life in Texas has officially begun!
