Much Ado...and Nothing

We planned, we listed, we got ready for Moving Day Part 2 this weekend.  My mom to watch the kids, friends to help move our furniture out of storage and into our place, moving food planned, room layouts decided.

And then, our house fell through. 

Surprised.  Disappointed.  We celebrated.  'Cuz for whatever reason, this season of life has been extended.  We haven't lived enough life to be wise, but we have lived enough to know that all seasons come to an end.  And so we soak up a bit more of this one. 

If we had been moving this weekend, we wouldn't have been around to celebrate my grandpa's 80th birthday.  And since we were in town, we commemorated, impromptu-style with dinner out and cake in.  I'm so glad we didn't miss it.  (Photos by my sis, Kenna, who graciously shared them with me.)

My grandma was 17 when they got married.  And over the years my grandparents have weathered the storms of juggling jobs, raising three daughters, building a house from the ground up, cancer, hearing a doctor diagnose their baby with rheumatoid arthritis...and holding her hand through countless surgeries, holding another daughter's hand through a painful divorce...and giving her away twenty-some years later to a man who cherishes her.  They have celebrated the births of eight grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren, with one more on the way.

80 years.  And if you could talk to him, my grandpa would tell you that family is one of the things that matter, no matter the season.  'Cuz he has lived long enough to be wise.

Seasons change; they change you.  Your world spins through cancer or divorce or a sick child or a failed move.  Sometimes, your thoughts grab hands with your world and they go twirling down together.  And maybe you cry out that perhaps God is unfair or maybe fear sets in.  And when waves capsize plans and dreams and the shore cannot be seen, we need a beacon that calls out in the darkness, "This is home. You'll drown out there; this is home."

I cannot tell you how timely Donald Miller's book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years has been.  I have read and re-read:

Somehow we realize that great stories are told in conflict, but we are unwilling to embrace the potential greatness of the story we are actually in.  We think God is unjust, rather than a master story teller.

I trust the Reference Point in the night, the Author of this life and give Him permission to rewrite our story.  He invites us to greatness.

O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

O light that foll’west all my way,
I yield my flick’ring torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.

O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.

George Matheson