Movin'

Shenanigans

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Where are all the days going?! In less than a month, Jeromie and I will be filling up another one of these crazy trucks, this time to head across the country. I suppose the swift current of days may indicate some coasting on my part... some dozing off, some drifting along. It happens more than I'd like. I either get super-busy or just worn out, and this time I think it's busy-ness. However, Jeromie and I have both been challenged lately to live and think and pray more alertly. Part of that is just the nature of change: there's work to do in finding a place to live and getting the move on, but I believe that God is stirring things up in our hearts and preparing us for something big. He's called us to listen and obey, and as we have taken each step, He's been providing. It looks like He intends that for where we physically live as well, but not without some difficult questions - one of which being: "What is your life centered around?"

As Jeromie and I have wrestled with that question, we've found too many things vying for the center. Work, creative projects, relationships, books, appetites, the comfort and ease of a car... a furry, yellow ball of energy and affection. In preparing for the move, that furry yellow ball (my awesome Molly-dog) has come to occupy more and more of our thoughts and emotions and wrestling... eventually to the exclusion of much else. You know what that makes? A dog-centered universe. A bit dyslexic of us, don't you think?

We've had to ask some hard questions in response, and consider more than just our desire to have this beautiful creature in our lives. To go where Jesus is often means leaving people, places, creatures and things behind - often much-loved - and we are not exempt from this. So, we're examining what this means in our lives and trying to discern what we must leave behind. Who knows, it may mean selling all we have and heading to Denver with what fits in/on our car. Right now, it seems that it will mean parting, at least for a time, with a very dear, six-and-a-half-year friend.

All I know is that I want to go where God is, and I want to live how He calls me to - whatever that entails. I want to ask and be asked the hard questions of what that really means in practice. I want to live generously and out of the sheer, life-giving love that Jesus embodied, embodies, and will ever continue to.

Tall order. Need grace.