loosening the moorings

{Ben blowing bubbles with the boys' Russian tutor, 

sitting on our future front steps}

Every time we approach another transition, there is one prayer that floats uppermost in my heart: “Lord, please get me ready.”   All my reluctance to leave the known, my dread of the inconveniences of the unknown, and the ache of saying more goodbyes press down together in the pit of my stomach.  But each time, He does get me ready.  Often He’s still shifting things around in my heart down to the final hours before lift-off, but I am always ready when we come right to the edge.    

Remember that grief I was feeling a month ago towards leaving this house?  It subsided, gradually, as grief does.  It faded away as I said my early goodbyes to our back yard, to our garden, to our light, airy rooms.  It faded away as I threw myself into loving this place afresh, enjoying each of the things that make it home to us.  

In its place came peace.  Peace!  And even the first flutterings of excitement.  Now we are ten days deep into cleaning and painting and scrubbing and de-cluttering our new house, and as we physically loosen our moorings, about to push off again and float toward our next tethering place, I can feel my heart lifting too.  

There’s something immensely satisfying about taking a dusty, moldy, grease-spattered space and making it bright and shiny clean.  It’s deeply comforting to fill a space with praise music, preparing the atmosphere as well as the walls for God’s presence to be present.  It’s invigorating to invite the Holy Spirit to come wash my heart and make me ready to be mistress of these new spaces, this new house, on this new street, next to these new neighbors.  

You know something?  This will be the first time in six years of marriage and eight years of living overseas that I will have a color scheme in my kitchen.  It was partly chosen for me (the shiny red cabinets were already there), but I chose the yellow paint.  Red for apples and cherries and happiness, yellow for sunshine and the warmth of God’s favor.  And I am happy, basking in red love and yellow grace, soaking up the warmth of God’s generosity.  To me, this will be the best house we’ve been given yet in Asia.  The best house.  And even if our days here are numbered (aren’t they always numbered?), every time I enter my red and yellow kitchen I’ll remember not to take a single day in it for granted.

{one of several treasures found in our new house}